Nesco CR1010PR Coffee Roaster Review

Are you fed up having smoke from roasting machines in your home? Then this may be the roaster for you.

Stylish, reasonably priced, and easy to use. What used to be known as the Zach & Dani’s roaster has gone through a name change and a few minor but thoughtful improvements.

Read this Nesco Coffee Roaster review to find out if it’s right for you.

SUMMARY: Nesco Home Coffee Roaster

• Affordable, practical, with a handy chaff collector
  
• Auger screw system to ensure even roasts
  
• Exclusive catalytic converter that reduces smoke issues

“This machine has dramatically less roast smoke than any other home machine”

– Sweet Marias

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The Nesco Home Coffee Roaster Review

The Nesco home roaster was formerly known as the ‘Zach and Dani’s’ roaster, and I have no idea why. But what I do know is that this home roaster is great at suppressing smoke, and a few other key things. Read our full review below to find out more about this home roaster:

The Nesco Home Coffee Roaster

• Features
• Ease of Use
• Roasting Capacity
• Roast Quality
• Roasting Time

3.9

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Features (4/5)

The Nesco Home Coffee Roaster has a user-friendly, intuitive display that makes it easy to program and understand your roast.

The catalyst lets you roast indoors without having to worry about the fire alarm going off at any minute. It also has a useful safety cutoff switch that turns off the appliance should you leave it on by mistake (not every roaster has one!).

What we feel is lacking is a temperature setting control, as this air roaster relies on roast time only. However, time is obviously one of the main variables involved in coffee roasting (1). Also, this air roaster does come with clear instructions to help you adjust the settings and understand the different roast times that you need in order to get specific roasts and cater to different types of coffee makers.

Oh, did we mention the chaff collector? Trust us: it will really make the cleaning process less painful. We like that.

Ease of Use (5/5)

Long story short: if you know the basics of coffee roasting, you’re ready to roast with the Nesco Coffee Roaster.

Not only is it intuitive and practical, but it also comes with an easy instruction book. While it might be hard to hear the first and second crack, you can rely on the color of the coffee beans (2) thanks to the transparent glass roasting chamber. To make things even easier, the digital setting indicator counts down during the cycle to let you know how long you’ve got left, and you can choose to add or reduce the remaining roast time, should you wish to.

Roasting Capacity (3.5/5)

This Nesco Coffee Roaster lets you roast ⅓ lb (150g) of green coffee beans in one go. It’s not as much as other coffee roasters on the market, but it’s not too bad: for example, it’s 30g more than the popular Fresh Roast SR540.

Make sure you follow the two roasting lines: don’t be tempted to overfill the roasting chamber even if it looks like you could fit much more in it, as beans expand when they roast (3).

After grinding one full batch of green beans with the Nesco Coffee Roaster, you will get enough to brew 36 cups of coffee. If you’re looking for something with a higher roast capacity, check out the Kaldi home roaster.

Roast Quality (4/5)

The Nesco Coffee Roaster uses an auger-driven agitator that keeps the beans moving in the roasting chamber, guaranteeing a uniform, even roast. While it’s not as versatile and precise as more expensive and professional roasters, it’s very good for a beginner/medium-level machine, especially considering the value for money.

Roasting Time (3/5)

This definitely isn’t the fastest coffee roaster (especially given the relatively small amount of beans that it can roast in one go), but it’s not the slowest and, unlike manual coffee roasters, there won’t be any elbow-grease work involved. You can simply press the button and wait.

It can take from 20 (for lighter roasts) to 35 minutes (for dark roasts) to roast a batch of beans. Don’t forget that, when you set the roasting time, the last 5 minutes will automatically be used for the cool down cycle.

Don’t Buy the Nesco Home Roaster If…

You don’t have time for roasting – That’s fair enough! In that case, this air coffee roaster is probably not the best for you. We recommend the Fresh Roast SR540, a budget-friendly machine that can roast 120g of green beans in half the time (around 10 minutes).

You want to be able to roast anywhere – If you’re one of those who’d rather be more involved with the roasting process and be able to take their coffee makers and roasters with them when on holiday, you might want to look at small manual roasters such as the Nuvo Eco Ceramic roaster. Or you could consider the Freshroast sr540.

You want to invest in something more ‘professional’ – While this model has the word ‘professional’ in its full name, it would be misleading to consider it anything more than a good home roaster. If you’d rather invest in something that allows you to control the variables more precisely and is more durable (a few users complained about the fact that the Nesco Coffee Roaster didn’t last as long as they expected), we recommend the Behmor 1600 Plus. You can find out more about its features here.

The Verdict

Overall, we think that the Nesco Coffee roaster is a good entry/medium-level air roaster, especially thanks to its innovative catalytic converter. We recommend it if you’re just beginning to roast your own coffee and don’t want to spend too much time learning about tweaking the variables that can influence the roasting process.

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Still on the fence? Why not check out our list of best home coffee roasters? Your first batch of freshly roasted coffee is only a couple of clicks away (exciting times ahead!).