Ooh nice. I still use a popcorn popper, and no bean probe or nothin', but I like my results well enough. But I see something like this in my future because I like nerding on this stuff.
I agree with almar, how's it taste? Have you been having good results with the Skywalker?
Yup! Loving the skywalker so far, the built in roast profiles are solid.
If i really had to nitpick a complaint I wish the bean cooler was a bit better. Its no where near as poweful as the one attached to my bocaboca. Oh well.
Very cool! Glad to hear it. I've always imagined I'd move on to a FreshRoast after my popper kicks the bucket (or when I get tired of it), but, I'll do a little more research on this one too. Looks relatively affordable for the feature set.
I started with the fresh roast, good starter roaster but once you go over 250g, even with an extension tube its rough.
I really liked the bocaboca but for the price the Skywalker kinda blows it out of the water
I'm using a (nearly) 20 year old Behmor. There's so much guesswork involved, especially if you're someone like me and rarely buy the same beans. I roast my own coffee, but after 20 years I still barely know what I'm doing. I like what I get, but still; it's a lot of trial and error, and guesswork.
The SkyWalker looks fantastic. It has all the features I wish I had on the Behmor: the sample tray thingy; temperature control; multiple gauges - there's not even a thermometer in the Behmor; an automatic mode? I mean, I'd like to have either a sampler or an auto mode on the Behmor, but this has both?? A proper chaff tray, to get the chaff out of the oven so it doesn't burn‽ A smoke filter or proper chimney to direct the exhaust‽‽
<groan> I don't need to spend any more money on this hobby.
What's that software (and device) you're using to get the results profile?
Artisan. Its the standard for roasting software. You will have to splice a USB cable on to an Arduino, or just buy a usb to dupont cable but its super easy.
If that sounds like a hassle 1. I read that the next version of this roaster will have artisan support built in and 2. The built in profiles are pretty good
How’s it taste? That’s the most important question! Did you cup the roast at all? I don’t remember where the settings for those notes are but I can look at mine and see if I can find them.
Gonna wait a few days to degas before tasting!
I really like the roster so far. Done about 20 roasts so far with their built in profile tools. Getting to to connect to artisan is pretty easy but it does talk either soldering or cable crimping knowledge. You'll be soldering a usb cable to an arduino so no chance of bricking the roaster
FWIW I always cup my beans ~12 hours off roast. I’ve taken quite a few classes from commercial roasters and they’ve always been consistent in that but obviously this is quite often more art than science so if it works for you then that’s great!
That's really ironic, since the word barista was popularized by fascists in 1938 and throughout WW2, because Mussolini wanted to replace the word barman which wasn't Italian enough.
I have a breville bambino plus for the past 3 ish years which also uses a thermoblock. I like it. Lower power draw at idle, no preheat, works like a charm IMO.
I have an Oracle at home which is dual boiler and a bambino for the van. Yes there is a difference, is it worth the £1500 extra and the weight and fragility? Probably not. The coffee is great and unless you are really really serious about your coffee, water, puck prep then the difference is so minor there isn’t anything in it.
Would I pay the same amount for a thermoblock as a dual boiler? Nope.
For me, even the dual boiler is not worth it. A machine with a working PID (that has the offset documented and you can set it, not via vague presets) and you are set and properly equipped. Everything above are nice to have but unnecessary.
As a fellow Aussie, the dual boiler often goes on special on Oz bargain. A friend bought theirs off there for $800 AUD.
I got mine for half price at boxing Day a few years ago (paid $1000 AUD) from David Jones of all places.
The other note is servicing. I've been told it's wise to have the breville machines serviced every two years or so. They replace the seals n so on which is helpful. You can do it yourself but there is a bit of mucking about.
FWIW, Lance buys the machines himself using his patron funds and doesn't let manufacturers into his process. Most don't even know they're being reviewed unless he has issues or specific questions he can't get the answers to elsewhere. He's frankly more qualified to test and compare such features than nearly anyone else, since he has thousands of hours of stick time with hundreds of machines at this point.
To get back to the bulk of your question, in many other industries where water heating is done, there's cheap thermoblocks and good thermoblocks.
Double boilers have been around long enough that improvements today are incremental at best. Heat Exchangers and Thermoblocks on the other hand seem to be improving by leaps and bounds still, and Thermoblocks in particular are getting a lot of development in other industries.
It looks like Ascaso is using decent blocks and is properly PID controlling them. Obviously it's not going to be as stable as say a full brass double boiler, but the results seem to outperform most heat exchangers.
Value is tricky though. You're right, it's a crowded market at that price. Personally at this moment, given this review at face value I'd still go with a Silvia Pro X today. But I expect in a few more years heat blocks might be able to match performance with dual boilers for cheaper and with less work.
In the European market, it is priced similarly to a Lelit Bianca, which is the end game budget. The Silvia Pro X is about 400€ and the Elizabeth can be found for 900€ less, both new.
To me it seems that the pricing is just not right. And understand that I am not the target audience for this kind of machine.
I don't know fuck about coffee and 99% of the time drink basic bitch Maxwell house from the warehouse club, but I love dark roast. Not these new megacaff brews being discussed though. I used to occasionally get Starbucks Sumatra, I just tossed my single serve thing and got a French press, and a bag of Peets Major Dickasons Blend.
I guess I don't really have a point, but I'm open to suggestions as I try to drink less crappy coffee lol.
Dark roast used to be my go-to before I realized I had some sort of reflux issue and started taking antacids. But sometimes I still stray back it had strong bitter flavor is kind of comforting
Yeah that's a very editorialized version and I hate that it's the top comment.
Obviously the coffee isn't going to be 100x better or more unique than a normal espresso. The point of the video was not to "discover" this, and if that's all you got out of it, you missed the point.
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