Glass Chimney for Air Popper Roasting

Some swear the glass chimney has a Venturi effect when roasting, actually increasing air flow and allowing for slightly more coffee to be roasted. I haven’t noticed a huge impact on air poppers that “swirl” the coffee. For coffee roasting, we usually recommend a "swirl" style popper with a flat metal bottom in the roaster chamber and vents around the sides to rotate the beans. The Nostalgia is a good example of this style. 

This glass chimney turns the so-called non-recommended type of air popper into a functional coffee roaster. “Non-recommended” type refers to poppers that discharge hot air straight up from a screen in the bottom of the roast chamber. By themselves, these poppers get too hot, too fast unless you roast a bigger batch and a bigger batch results in coffee beans getting ejected from the rop of the roast chamber. The addition of the glass chimney fixes both issues by allowing for larger batches while keeping the coffee rotating nicely in a vertical way. In fact, adding the chimney and roasting a larger batch could arguably agitate coffee in the roast chamber more effectively than the “swirling” type popper. And better agitation means more even heat distribution and better roasts.

Classic air poppers used for coffee roasting, like the West Bend Poppery and Poppery II, now sell for $40-$70 on Ebay. The “other” types of poppers can be picked up for a couple bucks at the thrift store or bought new for under $20, so we think using the glass chimney could ultimately make entry into coffee roasting much less expensive.

For more information, check out our library article about Air Popper Modifications. 

Hand blown, manufactured by Westinghouse. 

7.5" tall, with 2 5/8” diameter to fit most poppers old and new.