The HotTop Roaster is for those who want larger batches than the air roasters, longer roasts, a commerical type roast-and-cool cycle, and a more robust machine. Roasting with the HotTop takes an extra effort: you need to understand the sights, sounds and smells of the coffee roasting process to get the best results. But this method, roasting with your senses, is rewarded in a machine that gives a close-up view of the coffee during the roast cycle, and ... well ... produces so much roast aroma (read this as smoke!)

Yep, if you roast more coffee you are going to get more smoke. There's no way around it. With the HotTop, you are going to need ventilation to the outdoors, ideally by installing it under a kitchen vent hood. The roast profile reproduces the results of shop drum roaster more than the small home air roasters.

This especially suits folks who roast for espresso extraction, but in cupping the HotTop's lighter roasts, I am impressed with the aromas and delicate balance of the cup quality. We have a lot more photos and more written about the HotTop in our Extended Review.

The Hottop Programmable allows you to pre-program roast profiles (heating element power and fan speed) and store them for later use.  The Hottop Basic allows for on-the-fly adjustments of roast profiles, but only stores two profiles at a time.  In general, you might like the Programmable if you don't want to closely watch the beans during a roast, while if you like to micro-tune your roast while it's going you might prefer the Basic.