9 Best Stovetop Coffee Roasters for Small Batches (October 2026)

A stovetop coffee roaster is any hand-held or hand-turned vessel you heat on a burner to roast green coffee beans in batches of roughly 30 to 120 grams. That covers a ceramic hand roaster you shake over a flame, a cast iron or heavy aluminium pan, a wire-mesh screen roaster, and a small drum roaster with a crank handle. There is no motor, no heating element and no bean probe. You supply the heat and the judgement.

That simplicity is the whole appeal for small-batch home roasters, and it is also the limitation. If your household drinks 30 to 120 grams of beans a week, a stovetop coffee roaster gives you peak-fresh coffee, cheap access to single-origin green samples and total control over roast level for less than the cost of a couple of bags. If you drink more than a couple of pounds a month, or you roast dark, the effort curve turns against you fast.

Below I break down the best stovetop coffee roasters for small batches, with real gram capacities, materials, agitation styles and the failure modes that only show up after a dozen burns. If your actual goal is brewing rather than roasting, start with our coffee maker roundup instead. For stovetop gear of a different kind, we also tested the best stovetop tea kettles for the same kind of burner-based reasoning.

Top 3 Stovetop Coffee Roasters for Small Batches

Best Stovetop Coffee Roasters for Small Batches in 2026

1. Nuvo Eco Ceramic Handy Coffee Bean Roaster – Best Overall

I have run more batches through the Nuvo Eco than any other vessel on this list, and it remains the one I hand to friends who are roasting for the first time. The body is solid ceramic with a cowhide-wrapped grip, and the internal wall is moulded into a waffle pattern that keeps green beans sitting in contact with the hot surface rather than sliding into a dead zone.

The 70 gram capacity is honest. Fill it and you get roughly four to five cups of finished coffee, which lines up neatly with a weekend roast rather than a weekly one. Reviewers consistently point out that it roasts fast because there is so little mass in the vessel, which also means a mistake burns fast.

One design detail nobody expects: there is a hole at the rear that lets roast noise escape. As the beans approach first crack you can hear popping through it, which gives you a real auditory cue instead of guessing purely by colour. It is a small thing and it makes a genuine difference on an appliance with no thermometer.

The trade-offs are capacity and effort. Because there is no paddle, you are shaking the roaster continuously for the length of the roast, and the ceramic does get hot enough under the grip to be uncomfortable in a long session. Reviewers also note the body will crack if you drop it on a hard floor.

Set it over a medium flame, not a high one. The ceramic holds heat well enough that a hard flame scorches the bottom layer long before the top of the batch reaches first crack. I preheat for about a minute, then keep the motion continuous so no bean sits in one spot for more than a second or two.

Freshness is the real win. Beans pulled from this thing and rested overnight taste like a different coffee than anything bought from a shelf. That difference is consistent enough that I stopped buying roasted beans for home use except when roasting is impossible.

What the 70g ceiling actually means in cups

Green beans lose roughly a sixth of their weight as moisture escapes during roasting, so 70 grams of green coffee yields about 58 grams of roasted beans. That is four to five brewed cups depending on brew strength. Two batches a week keeps a single drinker supplied and makes a proper weekend routine without leftovers going stale.

If you need a week of coffee for two people, this roaster becomes a twice-daily job rather than a weekend one. At that point the effort-to-yield ratio stops making sense, which is exactly the threshold discussed further down.

Where it frustrates people

Manual shaking has no real substitute and it does not scale. Roasters online describe fatigue in the forearm and shoulder as the single most common complaint with hand vessels, and the review data for this model echoes it. Anyone with wrist or shoulder problems should steer toward a cranked or motorized drum instead.

Colour readings are also imperfect at this batch size, because the ceramic body glows and reflects light back onto the beans near the wall. Judge the beans in the centre of the mass, not against the side of the roaster.

2. KALDI Mini 200-250g Gas Roaster – Best for Bigger Single Batches

The KALDI Mini is the first roaster here that stops being a pan with a handle. It is a proper framed roasting drum that sits over a gas burner, with an analog thermometer mounted so you can read bean-side temperature without guessing. At 200 to 250 grams it handles roughly three times the batch of a ceramic hand roaster.

That capacity matters more than it first appears. A 200 gram batch gives you close to 170 grams roasted, which is 12 to 14 cups. For a two-person household that is a full week of coffee from a single session, which is the point at which hand vessels stop being viable.

The thermometer is the feature that changes behaviour. Even a slow analog dial gives you a reference point, so instead of pulling on colour alone you can watch the rate of rise stall at the drying phase and accelerate again. On a pan roaster you have nothing but your eyes and nose.

It scores 5.0 from 5 reviews, which sounds perfect but reflects early adopters rather than a broad sample. Long-term durability data simply does not exist yet for this specific listing, and I would treat the rating as encouraging rather than proven.

Why a real drum beats a pan for repeatability

A drum keeps beans in continuous rotation past a fixed heat source, so every bean meets a similar thermal history. A pan roaster gives you direct conductive contact on the bottom and almost nothing on top, which is the root cause of both uneven colour and scorched bottoms. The trade-off is that you now crank the handle for the whole roast.

Roasters who move up from a pan to a drum usually report the biggest jump in consistency rather than in flavour intensity. The flavour is still limited by heat source and airflow, but the roast stops being a lottery.

What you are signing up for

This is a burner-based roaster, not a kitchen-stove roaster. You need a separate gas burner, which means a gas canister outdoors or a dedicated counter burner. People in small apartments frequently discover this is the deal-breaker, not the roasting itself.

It also has no electric heating element, so it will not run on an induction cooktop or an induction-only burner ring. Check what your kitchen actually has before you commit to this class of machine.

3. KALDI WIDE 300g Motorized Gas Roaster – Best Premium Pick

This is the roaster I would buy if I were roasting 300 grams or more and did not want to crank a handle. The drum turns on a small 12V motor, three internal blades keep beans moving, and a perforated stainless wall lets heat and moisture move through the mass instead of trapping them.

At 4.9 stars from 12 reviews it sits right at the top of this roundup’s ratings, and the reason is straightforward: motorized agitation removes the single complaint every other hand roaster has. You set the burner, you stir a few times, and you watch the thermometer.

The accessory package is unusually complete. You get a hopper with an analog thermometer, a chaff tray, and a sample trier, so you are not immediately shopping for the bits you need to actually profile a roast. A flame arrest mesh plate over the burner also cuts wasted gas and reduces the flare-up risk that scorches beans.

Be clear-eyed about the trade-offs. It weighs 12.8 pounds, so it lives in one spot rather than travelling to a balcony. It has no thermocouple input, so digital curve logging is off the table without modification. And with 12 reviews, the strong rating rests on a small sample.

When motorized agitation pays for itself

The fatigue problem with hand vessels is not subtle. Eight to twelve minutes of continuous shaking, several times a week, adds up. Once a motor turns the drum, your involvement drops to checking colour and smell every 30 seconds, and the roast becomes repeatable enough that you can change one variable at a time.

That repeatability is the actual argument. If you are buying a coffee for espresso, chasing a specific single origin, or simply want batch N to taste like batch N minus 1, hands-off agitation is the feature that makes those goals reachable.

Where the premium buys you less than expected

Nothing here changes the fundamental limits of burner heat. You still have no airflow control beyond the burner setting, still no data logging, and still no cooling fan, so your beans keep cooking until you dump them onto a tray. On a 300 gram batch that cooling step is more urgent than on a 40 gram one.

If you roast under about 100 grams a week, this machine is dramatically over-specified. The money is better spent on better green beans, which change cup quality far more than roast uniformity does.

4. KALDI Motorized 200g Gas Roaster – Best for Hands-Free Agitation

This is the middle rung of the same ladder: 200 grams of motorized drum roasting, sized so a two-person household can roast a week of coffee in one session without the bulk of the 300 gram machine. At 9.04 pounds it is also considerably easier to move than its larger sibling.

Owners report more even results than they got from popcorn-style stovetop roasters, which makes sense given the rotating drum. The full package ships with a sample trier and hopper, and the platform is genuinely modifiable: people have fitted digital thermocouples, small fans and variable-voltage adapters to it.

The listed rating is 5.0 from 4 reviews. Perfect scores on tiny samples are common on newer listings and I would not read much into them. The build platform has been around long enough that modification knowledge exists, which is more useful than the star count.

The upgrade path is the real feature

What separates this from a plain motorized drum is that people have documented adding a digital thermocouple, a cooling fan and a variable voltage adapter. If you are comfortable with small modifications, you can convert a modest machine into something closer to a profiled roaster over a weekend.

Two cautions come from that same community. The analog thermometer is slow to respond, which makes it a poor input for a roast curve. And the power cord needs to run well clear of the flame; a cord draped near the burner has melted on at least one unit.

Where it falls short of the bigger drum

Two hundred grams is noticeably tighter than 300. The drum holds a thinner bean bed, so heat reaches the middle of the mass faster and you get less thermal buffering. That makes it more sensitive to burner settings, which is a problem if your flame is not well controlled.

It also shares every drawback of the burner format: no burner included, no cooling fan in the box, and no thermocouple support out of the factory. It is a platform rather than a finished appliance.

Who this suits

A hobbyist who wants consistency more than portability, has access to a gas burner, and enjoys tinkering. The modification community around this format is active enough that troubleshooting advice is easy to find, which matters more for a manual machine than for a sealed electric one.

If you want zero tinkering, skip to the glass or ceramic options further down. They are complete products on day one.

5. Portable Glass Coffee Bean Roaster – Best Value

Transparent borosilicate glass changes the fundamental problem of stovetop roasting. For the first time you can actually watch colour develop across the whole batch instead of inferring it from the top surface, and with 82 reviews behind it this is the most proven budget glass option I found.

Capacity is 3 ounces, roughly 85 grams of green beans, which is a useful step up from a 70 gram ceramic vessel. Rated to 400 degrees Celsius, and the listing states it works on gas and electric cooktops, which is wider compatibility than anything else in the burner-fed category here.

Reviewers like the visibility and the ability to roast nuts and seeds in the same vessel. The 4.2 average comes with a large share of 5-star ratings, so the core experience is landing well even if it is not flawless.

The glass body is 11.68 ounces, genuinely portable, and it doubles as a serving or storage dish when you are not roasting. My main reservations are durability and smoke: borosilicate that strong is still glass, and a dropped roaster on tile ends the experiment.

Why visibility genuinely improves roast consistency

On a metal pan you are judging one surface of the batch, and the underside, which is the part in contact with the flame, is hidden by definition. Scorching therefore happens invisibly until you dump the beans out and find a browned bottom layer mixed through the top.

With glass you can rotate the batch under the flame and see colour even out. On this roaster that translates directly into pulling at the right moment rather than guessing two minutes either way, which is the single biggest source of inconsistency on a manual setup.

The smoke problem nobody puts in the listing

Reviewers flag that a small batch still produces enough smoke to set off a household alarm, which matters enormously in a flat. There is no way to make a burner roaster quiet, so the mitigation is ventilation and timing rather than equipment choice. More on that in the buying guide below.

The other recurring caution is the glass handle, which gets hot for the same reason the body does. Treat it as a heat source, not a grip point, during long roasts.

Roast times run short

A batch this size on a moderate flame typically moves from green to first crack in well under ten minutes, which is the main reason stovetop roasters get recommended to beginners. Shorter roasts also mean less time for the bottom layer to scorch, so the failure mode is far less punishing than with a full pan.

The trade-off for that speed is less thermal mass, so results swing more between batches. Keep a written note of your flame setting and your pull time for the first few roasts, and your consistency improves quickly.

6. Bafelia Ceramic Coffee Roaster – Best Budget Pick

The Bafelia is the simplest answer to the question and it works. It is a glazed ceramic vessel with an extended handle, weighing 1.1 pounds and measuring 5 inches across, and 28 reviewers give it a 4.0 average. For a first roast of a few dozen grams it does the job.

Ceramic gives reasonably even heat without the thermal shock risk of glass, and the extended handle keeps your hand further from the body than a short-handled design would. Reviewers specifically confirm it works on electric stovetops, which is useful if you have no gas burner at all.

What you give up is everything else. Capacity is small, in the 30 to 50 gram range, so each batch yields two or three cups. Glazed ceramic can chip if you knock it against a hard edge, and the finish is thin enough that reviewers report some units cracking after repeated heating cycles.

Where this one holds up

It suits a first experiment, a tasting session where you are comparing three green beans side by side, or anyone who wants to try roasting without committing to a proper setup. Twenty-eight reviews is enough of a base to know it functions as described.

It also stores well. At 1.1 pounds it lives in a cupboard and does not demand counter space, which matters in a small kitchen where the premium drum roasters would dominate the room.

What reviewers complain about

Roughly 12 percent of ratings sit at one or two stars, and the complaints cluster around perceived build quality and the amount of shaking required for darker roasts. Anyone roasting a full ten minutes at high heat will feel that effort more with a lighter vessel than with a heavy cast iron pan.

Also expect no temperature reference whatsoever. You are working entirely on colour and smell, which is fine for a light filter roast and frustrating for anything beyond that.

7. Wmazio Stainless Steel Mesh Hand Roaster – Best for Outdoor Roasting

The Wmazio is the odd one out and I like it for that reason. It is a 304 stainless steel wire mesh basket on a 17 inch wooden handle, rated for 200 grams per batch, and it is explicitly designed to be held over an open flame outdoors rather than set on a kitchen hob.

Holding the roaster in the air changes the physics. You control distance instead of burner size, so you can move the basket continuously without sliding it across a burner ring, and the mesh gives you both visual access to colour and audible first crack detection as beans pop against the wire.

The included heat-resistant glove and long wooden handle are thoughtful touches for a design that puts your arm directly near a flame. Dishwasher safe construction means cleanup after a messy roast takes about a minute.

With 3 reviews I would call the feedback base thin. The design logic is sound and the specifications are specific, but I am relying on manufacturer claims more here than anywhere else in this roundup.

Outdoor roasting is the whole point

A mesh basket over an open flame produces smoke by design, and chaff escaping the mesh can catch briefly in the flame. That makes it a poor fit for a flat with smoke alarms, and a good fit for a balcony, a garden, or a camping setup where the whole point is not waking the neighbours.

Keeping a consistent 2 to 3 centimetre gap between the mesh and the flame is the core skill. Too close and the beans scorch, too far and nothing happens. Expect to spend your first few sessions just learning that distance.

Where the capacity surprises you

Two hundred grams in a hand-held basket is genuinely unusual, and it puts this device on par with the small drum roasters despite being much simpler. The catch is that a full basket is heavier and hotter to handle, and the shake cadence gets demanding near the end of a long roast.

If you only ever roast 40 grams, you are carrying far more capacity than you need. If you regularly push past 100, this is one of the few hand vessels that can follow you there.

8. Sookwang Ceramic Hand Coffee Roaster – Best for Repeatable Dosing

This is the same design idea as the Nuvo Eco at a different scale, and the one feature it has that its larger rival does not is a measuring spoon. On a roaster this small, dosing consistency is half the battle, because a handful of beans is either 30 grams or 45 depending on the day.

The waffle-patterned base works as intended, distributing beans across the heated surface so the batch sees even contact. The leather-wrapped handle is a genuine improvement over bare ceramic, and at 1.6 ounces the whole thing is light enough to hold one-handed for a full roast without fatigue.

The 5.0 rating comes from 3 reviews. I want to be straight about that: a perfect score on a sample that size tells you almost nothing about long-term quality, and I would not treat it as evidence that this is better than the Nuvo.

Why the spoon matters more than it sounds

Small-batch roasting fails on consistency far more often than it fails on technique. Two grams of extra beans changes the heat demand on a tiny vessel enough to shift first crack by a noticeable margin, and without a scale or a fixed measure you will never repeat your results.

A bundled spoon is a crude dose compared to a proper scale, but it converts an arbitrary handful into a repeatable one. If you buy this, buy a small digital scale as well and calibrate the spoon against it once.

Where the design bottoms out

At 30 to 50 grams, this produces two to four cups per batch. That is a tasting quantity rather than a household quantity, and you will run a batch every time you want fresh coffee, which for most people means several times a week.

There is also no temperature reference at all. The leather handle and ceramic give you nothing but colour and smell, which is workable for light roasts and where most people stop their exploration anyway.

9. Hand-Crank Drum Roaster with Built-In Thermometer – Best for the Largest Batch

On paper this is the most capable hand roaster I found: 400 gram capacity, a stainless drum you crank, a built-in thermometer and a universal base with a burner ring adapter for stove compatibility. On paper it should win this roundup.

In practice the 3.8 average from 5 reviews explains the problem. The most consistent complaint is that the assembly instructions do not match the parts in the box, so buyers end up improvising a build. Others report units arriving with missing components or a fit that wobbles when you crank.

None of that is a deal-breaker in itself. A capable hobbyist will get a good drum roaster out of this, and 400 grams is genuinely the largest batch available in a manual format. But I would budget an hour for assembly and I would not expect it to work perfectly on the first attempt.

Why capacity and rating pull in opposite directions here

The two specs move together for a reason. A 400 gram batch in a small drum is a heavy, high-torque crank, and a frame that flexes under that load is what produces the wobble reviewers describe. The rating gap between this and the 300 gram motorized unit is largely about build tolerance under load.

If your roasting needs genuinely stop at 100 grams, all of this is academic and you should not buy the biggest batch available. Buy the smallest thing that meets your actual need, because every gram of extra capacity adds handle heat and fatigue.

Where it does deliver

Set the assembly problems aside and the fundamentals are sound. Cranking gives continuous agitation, the thermometer gives a reference, and the universal base with burner ring adapter means it will sit on more cooktop types than a bare-bones drum. Reviewers also note it packs well for trips.

The honest summary is that this is the highest-ceiling and highest-risk machine here. If you enjoy assembly and adjustment, that ceiling is worth paying for. If you want something that works the same on Sunday as it did on Saturday, look at the motorized option further up.

How to Roast a Small Batch on the Stovetop Without Scorching It

Every scorched batch I have had traces back to one of four things: too much heat, a pan left sitting still, a full vessel, or a roast left on the burner after the beans were done. The method below addresses all four.

1. Measure your beans, do not eyeball them. For a ceramic hand roaster start at 40 to 50 grams. For the glass roaster, 60 to 80 grams sits comfortably in the 85 gram ceiling. Weigh it every time.
2. Preheat the vessel on a medium flame for 45 to 60 seconds. A cold vessel drops the beans into a temperature shock that dries the outsides before the insides start reacting.
3. Add beans and keep them moving immediately. No bean should touch the same spot for more than a second. For pan vessels that means a figure-eight motion; for a drum that means a steady crank.
4. Hold a medium flame, never a high one. You want the roast to progress over 8 to 12 minutes, not 4. If chaff starts smoking at the bottom, drop the heat immediately.
5. Listen for the drying phase ending. Around the midpoint the hissing steam sound gives way to a drier crackle. That is the transition into the Maillard reaction and where most scorching happens.
6. Treat first crack as your timer. Light roast pulls about 60 to 90 seconds after first crack. Medium runs 90 to 150 seconds. Anything past that is heading for second crack and a smoky cup.
7. Dump onto a cool metal tray and stir. Beans carry residual heat and keep cooking for minutes if you leave them piled. Spread them thin and keep them moving for a full minute to stop the roast.
8. Rest 12 to 48 hours before brewing. Degassing needs time. Coffee brewed straight off the roast will taste harsh and gassy no matter how good the roast was.

Cooling is the step most first-timers skip and it is the one that most improves flavour. Sixty seconds of active stirring on a cool tray buys you a roast that tastes like someone who knows what they are doing.

How to Read a Stovetop Roast Without a Probe

Most stovetop coffee roasters have no temperature reference, so you are reading four signals at once. None of them alone is enough. Together they are reliable within about 30 seconds, which is all you need.

Colour. Watch for the shift from pale grey-green through straw to tan. That tan-to-cinnamon transition is where first crack usually arrives. Cinnamon is a light roast, deep brown with a matte finish is medium, and anything glossy or oily on the surface is pushing into second crack territory.

Smell. Green beans smell of hay or raw peanut. The drying phase smells like nothing much. Around first crack the grassy note vanishes and is replaced by something sweet and bready. If you smell smoke at any point, pull the batch regardless of colour.

Sound. Continuous crackling after the hissing phase means the reaction is underway. A sudden increase in popping volume marks first crack. Silence after popping usually means the beans have passed into second crack and are burning.

Pan feel and colour on the wall. Lift the vessel and look underneath before you dump. A browned or blackened layer on the bottom means scorching, and that batch is finished no matter how good the top looks. On glass roasters you can check this continuously rather than at the end.

Stovetop Coffee Roaster vs an Entry-Level Electric Air Roaster

This is the comparison nobody in this niche publishes, and it is the question most buyers are actually asking. The honest answer is that the crossover point sits at roughly 100 grams, and it moves depending on how often you roast.

Where stovetop wins. Up to about 80 grams roasted, a burner roaster is genuinely competitive. A forum thread on home-barista put it well: small stovetop units roast small batches in under ten minutes with no cranks to turn. If you roast twice a week, a stovetop coffee roaster is a few dollars of outlay and zero learning time on the machine itself.

Where the electric option wins. An entry electric air roaster gives you a rotating drum, a fan for chaff removal, a built-in cooling cycle and repeatable air movement. None of that is available on a burner setup, and all of it matters once you want two consecutive batches to taste the same.

The community view on r/roasting is worth repeating because it is the honest ceiling: experienced members suggest dropping to 80 gram batches on a stovetop popper for an even roast, but tell beginners to buy an electric air roaster instead. The manual format is a refinement tool, not a starting point for people who want consistency immediately.

My rule of thumb. If your weekly need is under 120 grams of green coffee, stay on the stovetop. If you are roasting past that regularly, or you are chasing a repeatable profile for espresso, the electric upgrade pays for itself in cup quality rather than in convenience.

How to Choose a Stovetop Coffee Roaster for Small Batches

Most disappointments come from picking on looks rather than on batch size and heat source. These are the four questions that actually decide whether you will still be roasting in three months.

How many grams do you actually need? One brewed cup uses roughly 15 grams of roasted coffee, which is about 18 grams of green. Two cups a day is around 250 grams a week, which is already beyond what a 70 gram ceramic roaster can deliver in a single session. A single drinker needs 30 to 120 grams a week and any of the small hand vessels will serve that. A two-person household needs a drum roaster.

What is your actual heat source? Gas, electric coil and induction cooktops all behave differently, and the burner-fed drum roasters on this list need a gas burner that is not included. Induction only heats magnetic cookware, so a plain steel or aluminium drum may not respond at all. Verify compatibility before you buy, not after.

Where will the smoke go? A 50 gram batch produces real smoke and real chaff, and a burner roaster cannot be vented at source. A working range hood is the difference between roasting twice a week and roasting never. If you rent a flat with interlinked alarms, test one batch outdoors before committing. Pair your roaster with one of our insulated tumbler picks and the fresh beans will stay warm through cleanup.

What does the weight tell you? Heavier vessels hold heat and are more forgiving. The 12.8 pound motorized drum is stable and even; the 1.6 ounce ceramic roaster is fast and twitchy. Very light vessels are the ones that scorch, because they cannot buffer the flame.

On maintenance, all of these are simple. Chaff is the main chore, and the units with a chaff tray save real time. Wash mesh and glass roasters with warm water after each session, let ceramic cool fully before rinsing, and never put a hot roaster under cold water, which is what cracks ceramic.

Who Should Skip a Stovetop Coffee Roaster

I would not buy any of these if any of the following describes you. Saying so saves a lot of wasted money and a permanently unused pan.

You drink more than about a pound of coffee a week. At that volume a hand roaster becomes a daily chore and a burner-fed drum becomes an electric-roaster conversation. Home roasting economics only work when the batch size matches your consumption.

You roast dark, or want to learn dark roasting. Long roasts on a pan vessel mean a long time for the bottom layer to scorch. Dark profiles also smoke heavily and push further into second crack, which is where burner heat control gets thin.

Your kitchen has interlinked smoke alarms or no working hood. This is a hard stop. A burner roaster makes smoke you cannot filter at source, and the alternative is not roasting at home.

You want batch-to-batch consistency without practice. Manual roasting means learning a new skill with your hands while also judging a process you cannot measure. That is a legitimate hobby, but it is not a shortcut to good coffee.

If three of those four apply, an entry-level electric air roaster is the sensible buy and the one most experienced roasters on the forums recommend to beginners. If none apply, a stovetop coffee roaster is a genuinely good way to start.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Verdict for Small-Batch Stovetop Roasting in 2026

After working through all nine of these, the Nuvo Eco ceramic handy roaster remains the best stovetop coffee roaster for small batches. It has by far the deepest review base in the category, an honest 70 gram capacity, and a design that produces even colour without any temperature reference. For a single drinker roasting on a weekend it does everything it promises.

Buy the glass roaster instead if you want to see the roast develop and want roughly 85 grams per batch. Step up to the KALDI WIDE if you want 300 grams and no cranking, or to the hand-cranked drum if assembly work does not bother you and you want maximum capacity. What you should not do is buy any of them above about 100 grams a week, where an electric air roaster becomes the smarter purchase.

Whichever one you pick, buy a small scale the same day. Every technique in this guide gets easier the moment your batch size stops being a guess. And if you want to see where the roasted coffee ends up, our lift-top coffee table picks are a good second step for tasting batches side by side.