Fresh Roast (Home Roasting Supplies)

History

The company was born from a freshness problem. In the early 1990s, Tim Skaling's brother was roasting commercially on the East Coast of the United States. He sent his roasted coffee to Tim, who lived on the West Coast. After a few days, Tim tasted a loss of quality in it, because a roasted bean degasses and then oxidizes quickly. His brother advised him to roast for himself. Tim then modified a hot-air popcorn machine, which already blew scorching air through a load. From this tinkering came the first Fresh Roast in 1995. The company was first called Fresh Beans, Inc., and its manuals carry an address in Park City, Utah. In the mid-2000s, Sam, Tim's son, took over the business. He took it onto Amazon, which changed the scale of distribution: online sales replaced the network of specialty resellers. Sam Skaling now presents himself as owner and manager. The brand became Home Roasting Supplies, in Henefer, the trade name of the company Home Roasting Services LLC. In May 2019, the SR range was redesigned. The manufacturer announces finer control, a heating element opening a wider temperature range, a redesigned chamber and a temperature readout on the machine.

What it makes

A single family of machines, the home fluid bed roaster. The SR900 manual uses the term, fluid bed roaster. The principle has remained that of the original popcorn machine. A fan blows hot air up from the bottom of a glass chamber. The air lifts the beans and tumbles them: this is the fluid bed, a solid load that behaves like a liquid. Heat therefore travels by convection, the hot gas giving up its energy to the bean, and not by conduction against a hot metal wall. Two consequences. The machine has almost no thermal mass, so it reacts within a few seconds. The same stream carries the heat and the agitation, so the two settings are never truly independent. The company nevertheless separates them at the controls: one power setting, one fan setting, nine notches each since the 2019 redesign. The air then passes through a chaff basket, that silvery skin that detaches from the bean during roasting. A cooling cycle cuts the heating element and lets the fan keep running. The SR900 adds a probe set into the chamber wall, which gives the temperature of the bean and not that of the air. It measures without controlling: SR900 profiles are written in time, not in temperature setpoints. Changes of heat and ventilation are entered at given instants. Hence the two settings that the software makes you declare, mains voltage and altitude. At an equal heat notch, a 110-volt outlet does not deliver the power of a 120-volt one, and the thin air at altitude does not carry away the same heat.

The models

Capacities are stated in green coffee. The current range has three machines. The SR540 takes up to 120 g, or 4 ounces, for a stated 1200 watts. The SR800 takes up to 226 g of washed coffee, 170 g of natural coffee, whose chaff is more abundant, and no less than 113 g, for 1600 watts. The SR900 works on 225 g. It adds the bean probe, a Bluetooth Low Energy link and a profile software, Roast-Tech, which plots the curve and controls heat and fan. The profiles stay on the computer or phone, with no subscription or remote storage. Only one profile can be loaded into the machine, which then runs it even if the link drops. In September 2026, the manufacturer sells the SR540 for 239 dollars, the SR800 for 334 and the SR900 for 449. The first generation, SR300, SR340, SR500 and SR700, is no longer made. The manufacturer is still clearing a remnant stock of SR340 bases, new or refurbished, under a thirty-day warranty and without spare parts. The Fresh Beans manual for the SR300 and SR500 states about five ounces of green, or 0.14 kg, measured with the 43 cm3 cup filled four times. Sweet Maria's nonetheless credits the manufacturer with a capacity of 120 g for the SR500. The two figures coexist without having been reconciled. A 26 cm glass extension tube exists for the SR540 and SR800. Its own instructions say it improves circulation and allows finishing at low heat, while restating that the maximum loads are unchanged. The SR800 product page, on the contrary, promises larger batches. The manufacturer therefore contradicts itself on this point. The SR900 does without it.

What you gain

Convection heats quickly and evenly, as long as the bed stays fluid and every bean sees the air pass. The machine has almost no thermal mass: the correction follows the knob within a few seconds, which a cast-iron drum does not allow. The controls separate power and fan, so you can agitate more without cutting the heat. The glass shows color and movement live, which does away with the sample trier of drum machines. Cooling is blown and built in, three minutes on the SR500, with no transfer to an external tray. The SR900 displays the development time ratio, the share of total time spent after first crack. It is a reference point that home machines rarely give, and it can be read without a subscription.

What you lose

Fluidization depends on the mass and density of the load. A dense bean, or too heavy a load, does not lift off, and the roast becomes uneven. Sweet Maria's judges 90 g preferable to the 120 g the manufacturer claimed for the SR500. The manufacturer itself drops from 226 to 170 g for natural coffee. Lowering the fan to raise the temperature degrades the agitation, since the two settings draw on the same stream. The result also depends on mains voltage and room temperature. The SR900 manual requires at least 13 degrees and has you declare the voltage, proof that the machine does not compensate for these variations. Nothing is provided for sustained use. The SR900 manual rules out continuous duty and asks for fifteen to twenty minutes between two batches. The glass and the basket break when dropped, and Sweet Maria's notes that the chamber is not held firmly by the base. Exceeding the recommended load clogs the chaff basket and increases the risk of a chaff fire, warns the instruction sheet of the extension tube.