Fresh Roast SR540 Roaster

I dropped my 10yr old earlier version of the 540 roaster . After a respectful period of mourning and an extreme need for home roasted coffee I bought the 540. The earlier version had no built-in programs so you were on your own to develop the perfect roast. The path taught me to listen for 1st and 2nd cracks as needed, watch the beans as they turned colors, and smell or watch for the first hint of smoke. This new thing seemed to think that it did not need human interference. Plug it in.Push a couple of buttons. and off it went to what turned out to be a mediocre/weak cup of coffee. After a man to machine talk we decided to fiddle with the time, temp, and fan speed. If you have been roasting for a while you do notice that there is no set recipe for beans. My second attempt got me closer. and now my third iteration is very very close. I am impressed by the upgrades that have been incorporated: new bean cup, infinitely better husk catcher. Well worth the purchase. and after I confirmed that the staff at the store were not robots I was able to customize the bean sample that they were so graciously offering. CBC has been my dealer for a long time helping me to maintain cordial relations with my partner in the early morning through hot fresh brewed coffee. After a good cup of coffee we are very sociable.

I received the sr540 and extension for christmas. Did the "roast along" after roasting using various youtube instructions. These were great, but the "roast along" with coffee corral gave me perfect results: a 12 minute light medium roast of Colombian Don Enrique Reserve. The only thing I would change is asking for the SR 800 for a larger capacity roaster.

Well designed, well made, easy to use, but it's almost impossible to reach over 450 deg F, even with the minimum fan speed. I improvised an extension tube from an Illy Coffee can with the bottom cut out. The ends fit the top of the glass chamber and the chaff collector quite well. I'd like to thank Jasmine for giving me a pound of seasoning beans instead of the roasting log and bags.

Was really enjoy this SR540 for the first year when suddenly out of nowhere the controls stopped working about15 months into it. (3 months past the warranty). The numbers when turning the knob to set do not graduate in order in fact they are sporadically all over the place. I'm still using it as I was finally able to get a setting of 9,9,&13 mins which works ok for.my Guatamalan beans but is not the setting I prefer. I've been debating on whether to get another or move to a different machine.

Super easy to use and seems very solidly built!

The SR540 is a welcome and big improvement to the SR500 I've used for the past 5 years. I like the larger bean canister. And the new heat/fan adjustment ability is like rocket science compared to my old popcorn popper roaster.

I had been using the SR500 for a couple years and have really liked it. I just got the SR540 and it works much better. The chamber is larger and the beans roast more even.

My husband loves the coffee we bought him for Father's Day, it's exactly what he wanted.

Great roaster!

I started with a popper a year ago. I upgraded for Christmas this year to the SR540. I will say it has been like night and day. I now control the temp and roast time with what seems like scientific precision! The cooling feature is great as well, I was using a homemade cooling box with computer fan. One machine now, it is awesome. One slight negative is the 30 min wait time between roasts. It takes 2 roasts to fill the small valve bags, so an hour per roasting event. My routine so far: 140g Beans- 2mins @ 9/9/20 to dry the beans. Drop down to 4/9 or 5/9 to raise temp to approx 400° until first crack. Will go to 3/9 to raise to 405-410° until second crack. For most of my beans, I am hitting a rolling second at 10-11 mins. I don't do dark so need to try that I suppose. I love the fact time/temp is now a controllable parameter.

I had roasted coffee several years ago with a modified popcorn popper. I decided to try it again with upgraded equipment, as I liked the freshness when roasting myself. Overall the SR540 is an adequate roaster. It took a few roasts to figure the machine out. Out of the box, the roaster defaults to Fan: 9, Heat:5. I was not able to get anywhere near hot enough with these settings. I had to dump quite a few roasts. I thought maybe my voltage was too low, but I measured it and got 122V from my outlet. I actually reversed the settings Fan: 5 and Heat: 9, then I started getting somewhere with my roasts. Depending on the bean, I typically let that run for 2 minutes, then start moving the fan speed down whenever the beans start bouncing more. Fan: 4, Fan: 3, I typically hit the first crack. Then continue dropping to Fan: 2, and finally Fan: 1, all the time keeping Heat: 9. This has given me good roasts. Once you are satisfied with your roast, you can hit the cool button, and then have to remember to turn the fan up to 9. Set the timer to the max of 20, and don't pay attention to it again, it might be useful if it counted up, so you can see how far into the roast you were. I like that the new settings are remembered for the next roast, so I can always start on 5/9/20 on future roasts. Once the roast starts, spin the dial and you will see the temperature on the display instead. 120g pre-roast weight gives me about enough for 2 days of coffee. This is good right now as I am learning and adjusting roasts. I might want to get an extension tube to increase capacity later, as I hone my skills and settle on a few roasts I like. A few things I wish were different: - No need for the timer, it is useless. Or change it to a count-up timer, instead of a count-down. - Automatically set the fan to 9, when starting cool. - Always show the temperature display - Separate dials (with stops marking 1-9) for Fan and Heat, this helps, the display could be dedicated to showing the Temp. - Lock for the roasting chamber, currently only gravity holds everything together Overall: It is easy to use, (could be even easier with the above ideas) It does beat the coffee from the popcorn popper roaster I was using years ago.

I have used an SR540 for years. I am on my second roaster. The only thing I don't like about it is it will only roast for 9.9 minutes. To get a dark roast you have to go back and add another minute or more to the roasting time after it gets below 9.0 or 8.0. This is an inconvenience when you are doing other things besides roasting beans.