Coffee beans are deceptively fragile. Technically speaking, they begin to deteriorate soon after roasting—though probably not noticeably. However, after they’ve been left to sit for five days, some of the coffee beans’ aromatic qualities begin to fade away. Roasting in smaller batches prevents that degradation, simply by the roaster producing just enough high-quality beans to last through the drinking cycle.
Creativity is another great reason people are turning to DIY roasting. Every coffee bean has a distinctive flavor profile, marked by subtle differences in taste, body, and accents. With a do it yourself roaster, coffee drinkers can experiment with different blends for a wide spectrum of tastes. Just like those who brew their own beer, coffee roasting fans can tinker with basic roasting formulas to create blends with their own personal stamp.
Several machines on the market make coffee roasting possible for anyone who wants to try it—but, like coffee beans themselves, there are a lot of differentiating factors between each device, including ease of use, roasting time, capacity, features, and of course price. We’ll look at eight of our favorite devices on the market and evaluate their strengths so you can determine which one will find a place in your heart.
Coffee beans are deceptively fragile. Technically speaking, they begin to deteriorate soon after roasting—though probably not noticeably. However, after they’ve been left to sit for five days, some of the coffee beans’ aromatic qualities begin to fade away. Roasting in smaller batches prevents that degradation, simply by the roaster producing just enough high-quality beans to last through the drinking cycle.
Creativity is another great reason people are turning to DIY roasting. Every coffee bean has a distinctive flavor profile, marked by subtle differences in taste, body, and accents. With a home roaster, coffee drinkers can experiment with different blends for a wide spectrum of tastes. Just like those who brew their own beer, home coffee roasting can tinker with basic roasting formulas to create blends with their own personal stamp.
Several machines on the market make coffee roasting possible for anyone who wants to try it—but, like coffee beans themselves, there are a lot of differentiating factors between each device, including ease of use, roasting time, capacity, features, and of course price. We’ll look at eight of our favorite devices on the market and evaluate their strengths so you can determine which one will find a place in your home.
At A Glance: Our Top 5 Picks for Coffee Roasters
What to Look for in a Coffee Roaster
There’s a reason why coffee drinkers have traditionally relied on the expertise of others for roasting their beans: It wasn’t easy. Commercial coffee roasting machines handle big batches of beans, and their premises have to have the capacity to roast coffee on a fairly large scale. That means the devoted coffee drinker has to rely on their recipes and timetable, which doesn’t always lead to a superior final product.
So someone purchasing a coffee roaster is looking to replicate that process in as easy of a process as is humanly possible. They’re discriminating when it comes to superior coffee when it’s coming out of their own coffee maker, or they want to learn about making blends that they’ll enjoy more.
Those new to coffee roasting also want a product that fits their learning curve, whether it’s relatively automatic or has room for a little elbow grease. Dependability is also a big factor: An automatic roaster may be extremely convenient, but it stops being so if it has a shorter life span that something that might require more handholding through the process.
Coffee roasting machines come in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, functionality and retail prices. It’s not always easy to tell the differences between them, and a little difficult to compare products with such a wide range of qualities, even if they all do the same basic thing. To compare each of our favorite coffee roasting machines, we use five different criteria:
Ease of Use
Every coffee roaster has a certain degree of monitoring—there’s not really a “set-it-and-forget-it” device that makes perfect beans every time. But each one has a different level of user input. Some of them have their own heating and cooling units and just require the push of a few buttons and some general oversight. Others have to go on stovetops, and a couple of them require the user to actually turn a crank—but they’re more easily controlled. “Ease of use,” in our judgment, is a combination of how much thought and effort goes into every batch your roast, and how valuable the roaster’s automatic features actually end up being.
Flexibility. Coffee roasting goes through a very specific set of phases, from light to dark roasts. Some machines are more amenable to your devising your own blends and flavors. How well a roaster can handle different kinds of blends, shades, and qualities is a big factor in its evaluation.
Yield
Some coffee drinkers go through a relatively large amount of coffee in a short period. Others are more reserved and drink less. But one suggestion is the same for all types of coffee fans: You should never roast more coffee than you’re prepared to consume for five days. Our “yield” factor is based on two criteria: how much a roaster can handle every time it’s used, and how well each yield turns out.
Features
Coffee roasting really runs the gamut in terms of how much they can do. Some have automatic heating and cooling cycles, others have a variety of attachments and supplemental tools, many have timers built in to monitor progress and switch between cycles. Sometimes a whole bevy of features can be useful; other times they lead the user into a false sense of security that the technology will get every roasting session right. When evaluating the features of each roaster, we also try to decide how valuable that feature is.
Value for Price
The bottom-line question, of course, is whether a coffee roaster is worth the expense. The retail price range is all over the map, from $30, “manual” coffee roasting to literally thousands of dollars for high-capacity automatic ones. We judge how well each coffee roaster pays back the user’s expense—in both money and effort.
FAQs About Roasting
How long does it take to roast coffee?
The time differs according to how dark you want your beans to get and how many you’re roasting, but generally between 10 minutes for smaller amounts and 18 for larger ones.
What are the different stages of roasting?
The first stage is drying. Coffee beans have a fairly high percentage of humidity, up to 12%, so the initial phase dries them out and prepares them for the energy-consuming final stage.
The browning stage changes the beans’ greenish tint to a more burnt-yellow color. It’s also when the bean starts to develop its individual character and flavors. This phase is also called the “first crack,” because you’ll actually hear the beans start to pop when it happens. Some people stop not long after this phase if they’re shooting for a lighter color.
The roasting stage is slower than the stages before it, allowing the beans to build deep aromas. Roasting fans might hear a “second crack” at this point as the internal oils of the beans start to appear on the outside. This is a phase that those who prefer dark roasts usually get to. The final stage is the cool-down of the beans, which is just as it sounds.
What’s the difference between “drum” and “fluid bed” roasting?
Drum roasting, which are the more traditional, widely used kind, simply hold the beans in a vat and heat them via conduction from underneath the drum. Fluid-beds, which first came onto the scene in the 1970s, are more cylindrical in shape, and heat the coffee beans by convection: pushing hot air through the beans, rather than on top of a stove.
Where do I get green coffee beans?
If you live in a major urban area, you might find green beans available at your friendly neighborhood local coffee roasting facility. If you live in a smaller town you have less luck finding a provider with a decent selection, but you should be able to order them from online companies and have them delivered straight to your door.
The Top 8 Picks
Fresh Roast SR540
Fresh Roast is the most ubiquitous manufacturer: They’ve produced several different models over the years for a couple generations of roasting fans. The SR540 is their latest consumer-oriented model, and it’s probably the most foolproof of all the brands we tried, especially for newcomers to roasting.
The SR540 is a fluid-bed roaster that consists of a heavy base with all the controls, a tough plastic roasting cup that can handle up to five ounces of green beans (though you might want to limit it to four), and a cap that not only keeps the beans from flying out but filters out the chaff and detritus that collects during the roasting process.
The SR540 makes the roasting cycle as manageable as possible—not quite 100% automatic, but fairly easily controlled. The panel features one, single dial with which you adjust everything about your roast: time, roast level and fan speed. One big advantage of this dial is that it allows the user to set different roast levels on a scale of 1 to 9; previous Fresh Roast models offered a maximum of three different levels. Fan speeds and temperature levels during roasting all go through this dial, so it’s relatively simple to make in-process adjustments.
The electronic display consists of four LCD digits, which rather neatly correspond to different functions: the first digit displays the fan speed, the second the temperature of the roast, and the final two the total amount of time left. If you quickly twist the knob, the LCD display shows the temperature of the air inside the roasting apparatus.
Ease of Use
The SR540 is as close to automatic as consumer-level roasting machines can get. The dial controls almost all adjustments during the roast, including temperature, fan and agitation speed, and time. You can’t depend on the thermostat and digital readouts all the time—but you can’t do that with any other brand either. Rating: 5.
Flexibility
The controls make changing the time, heat and speed very easy, and tend to forgive new users as much as possible. You have to know what you want to do before you go in, so it’ll take some trial and error for newbies. But again, that’s more than most other brands offer. Rating: 5.
Yield: The maximum advised amount of beans the SR540 can handle is five ounces, but four is optimal. That will leave a lot of room in the roasting chamber, but you’ll need it for the agitation process. Rating: 4.
Features
The single-knob dial functionality and the nine different roast settings are great. So is the locking in of the roast chamber into the base—no wobbling or looseness here—and the cap, which doubles as a guard and an excess gunk filter. Rating: 5
Value for Price: Retailing for $189.00 on major e-tail websites, with a one-year warranty on the base, and six months for the other components, the SR540’s competitively priced. The fairly brief warranty period raises some concerns about the device’s shelf life, though. Rating: 3.
Gene Café Drum Roaster
The Gene Café Drum Roaster is right on the borderline between what we’d call a consumer roaster and a professional one. It can handle a large capacity (8 ounces) of coffee beans and costs a great deal more than most kitchen coffee roasting set-ups. Its size and bulk probably won’t fit comfortably on most kitchen counters with appliances fighting for space. But if you have the budget, the room, and an all-consuming need for coffee, it might be worth whatever you give up.
The Gene Café’s roasting chamber resembles a friendly fluid-bed, but it’s actually a drum style that gets heat from the surface. It fits into the mechanism at kind of a strange angle, but that allows for gentle, yet effective bean agitation at a consistently slow speed. Using the drum also means you have no fan function to worry about, but you do have to monitor the temperature at the appropriate cooling-down point.
The Gené Cafe has two dials, setting the time and temperature. The temp LCD display niftily shows both the temperature you’ve set and the current temperature inside the drum. Once you start the roasting process (after, as strongly advised, you preheat the machine), the drum rotates rather slowly and quietly, and the angle it’s positioned in allows the beans to move around gently. There’s also an exhaust pipe attached to the side, to which you can add a dryer vent if you need the smoke to go outside your roasting room. (That’s another bug or feature about drum machines: They produce smoke.) The side apparatus also has a chaff collector that you detach and empty out.
The process takes time—up to 22 minutes, not including preheating—but the deliberately slow nature and durability of the machine give the user plenty of options for blending their unique flavors of coffee. You’ll be experimenting a lot with the Gené Cafe, and that’s what it was built to do.
Ease of Use
The rotating drum may look awkward and isn’t necessarily a snap to put in, but the controls are easy to understand, read, and are easily changed. You do have to preheat the mechanism before using it. Rating: 4.
Flexibility
The Gené Cafe is forgiving to those who like to experiment with different blends and roasts. The trade-off is the amount of time required for each batch, but anyone seeking that much range of roasting output won’t mind a bit. Rating: 5.
Yield: You can roast up to 8 ounces of untreated green beans, which is generous. The chamber has a “fill line” for effective dry-process beans. The Gené Cafe is also good for doing multiple batches of coffee beans in a day—one reason why it’s almost a full-on professional roaster, but not quite. Rating: 4.
Features
The rotating drum is very, very quiet. While that’s fantastic for keeping peace in the kitchen, you may have a hard time hearing the “cracks” that are necessary to gauge where you are in the process and when you need to adjust the temperature, so that decision will largely rely on what you see happening inside the drum. The exhaust pipe is helpful and can be fitted with a dryer vent. Rating: 4
Value for Price
At $585 through most coffee online retailers, the Gene Café isn’t cheap. It comes with a one-year warranty. For more casual roasting, it might be a bit much. But we can’t argue with its very consistent results, and if you’re looking to become an expert in roasting, this model will help you the most. Rating: 3.
Behmor 1600 Plus
Resembling a small microwave or a big toaster oven, the Behmor 1600 Plus has a great variety of settings and controls that makes the process of coffee roasting highly customizable.
Roasting takes place in a mesh-style, cylindrical drum that’s a little more delicate-looking than one might expect for something meant to be exposed to high heat. Installing the drum into the mechanism itself is a little tricky, as well—it must be put it at an angle and secured by brackets and clasps. Making sure it’s fitting involves a little rocking back and forth.
Once it’s put in, though, the Behmor works much like a microwave. It features five pre-programmed roast settings that you can begin right away. If you’re doing a darker roast with more complex temperature adjustments, the Behmor lets you manually override the settings for closer personal control.
However, choosing that option also changes the functions of the programming buttons—for example, Button A handles your exhaust temperature, Button B refers to the temperature in the chamber itself, Button C resets the timer, and Button D picks up the speed on the agitation. There’s a little bit of a learning curve to the Behmor, but it does handle all variations of roasting from light to dark with relative ease if you know what you’re doing.
Ease of Use
The rotating drum is a little tricky to install and switching from automatic roasting to manual functions turns the button bank into an entirely different beast. Still, if one properly reads the instruction manual, the routines of temp control and cool-down could eventually become second nature. Rating: 4.
Flexibility
The Behmor handles most roasts very well, given the operator’s level of comfort with manual control of the buttons. An internal fan helps filter out the chaff. Rating: 4.
Yield: The Behmor advertises a one-pound capacity—far bigger than any other machine on this list. Whether or not you want to use that full capacity often may be another matter altogether, but you have that option. Rating: 4.
Features
The cumbersome drum is a little hard to operate, and despite advertising “smoke-suppression technology,” you’ll most likely experience a smoky kitchen with the Behmor. However, it will fit on your countertop, which is convenient. And the variable function buttons, once you get past the intimidation, give you a great range of control if you’re willing to use it. Rating: 4
Value for Price
At $400, it’s a big expense for a countertop device. But if you live in a house with a lot of coffee drinkers and value a versatile roaster that can handle a lot of beans, it might be worth the price and the one-year warranty. Rating: 3.
Nesco Bean Roaster
Nesco’s very diminutive coffee bean roaster takes the place of its larger, more functional Nesco 1010, which has mysteriously disappeared from the market. Comparing the two is almost unfair, but the Nesco Coffee Roaster that’s now available is a decent choice for budget-minded, consistent coffee drinkers who need to get the job done.
Everything is basically contained in one unit: canister, chaff collector, and base. The automatic roasting options are a bit limited—medium and dark, and that’s about all. Users can, however, facilitate their own preferred roast style by manipulating the temperature control. The relatively smoke-controlled unit finishes a roast in 20 minutes, including a cool-down period.
You can monitor the progress of the Nesco via a top-located window, which is something of a limitation in comparison with other roasting machines offering 360-degree visuals. Its compactness is welcome for its appearance on your countertops, and its overall capacity is impressive for a budget line item. What the Nesco lacks in overall versatility may be worth sacrificing if your coffee needs are basic and rarely changing.
Ease of Use
It’s easy to get a batch started, but only within a few parameters. More complex roasting necessitates more watching and controlling on the user’s part when it comes to temperature. Rating: 3.
Flexibility
Again, the limited options in terms of automatic roasting costs the Nesco its multi-purpose rating. Rating: 3.
Yield
The Nesco advertises a capacity of about 4 ounces, which is suitable for roasting machines in its price band. Rating: 4.
Features
It’s a basic unit for basic needs, with very little in the area of bells and whistles. Rating: 2
Value for Price
Here’s where the Nesco makes its biggest impression: It retails for around $80 with a one-year warranty. So despite the cap on features, capacity, and versatility, for brand new do it yourselves fans, who don’t want too much in the way of complications, the Nesco makes no false promises. It might be a good place to start for up-and-coming starters. Rating: 3.
KALDI Roaster
The KALDI Roaster is a little intimidating—it seems to be made of a bunch of detachable parts, including a funnel we’re kind of afraid we’ll get dropped into and lost in. Out of all the products in this review, it’s probably the least suited for new recruits to the world of coffee roasting. But for the brave few who are a little more into their roasting journey, the drum-roasting KALDI may bring about huge rewards.
There’s nothing automatic about the KALDI—the user has total control over every mechanism and function, with no preset buttons to guide the way. You control every part of the process, from drum speed and temperature to process time. The drum is extremely functional looking, with hundreds of round holes for ventilation, and rotates a few inches above a vertical heating section along the bottom of the unit. Also, the KALDI requires a gas burner to operate, which is not included and probably not the easiest accessory to get for new users.
It’s a little terrifying. But to be completely honest, for those who are already savvy enough in the process of roasting to where they can monitor everything closely, the KALDI produces some amazing roasts. If you’re a confirmed kitchen-body whose interest in craft is elevated above your neighbors, the KALDI may become the centerpiece of your neighborhood coffee-making.
Ease of Use
Strictly speaking, you have everything you need to roast great coffee beans with the KALDI—you’ll just have to do it all yourself. Also, the KALDI requires a gas burner, which comes separately. If you’re an old hand at this business, you probably aren’t reading this paragraph anyway. But if you’re not, then it’s a Rating: 2.
Flexibility
The KALDI is as flexible as you are because you call all the shots. However, once you’ve mastered the ins and outs of the roasting cycle, the KALDI can handle whatever you want. It’s also fairly quick with roasting cycles: its 10-to-15-minute range is admirable, but it’s using a lot of power, to begin with. Rating: 4.
Yield
The KALDI can handle a whopping 10.5 ounces (300g) of coffee beans in one sitting. That’s 40 cups of coffee in a single batch. Of all the machines we cover here, only the Behmor 1600 has more. Rating: 5.
Features
There’s a bean funnel, an exhaust outlet (which you’ll need), and an adorable analog thermometer. The construction quality is excellent, but there’s nothing ready-made about this device. Rating: 4
Value for Price
For $470—not including the gas burner—the KALDI is for serious coffee makers only. If you’re just starting out in the coffee-making business, we’re not sure this is going to get you up and running right away. But for already-skilled amateurs with a passion for coffee roasting, the KALDI may be invaluable. The quality is unquestionable. Rating: 3.
Jiawanshun Electric Roaster Machine
The Jiawanshun is the most distinctive looking entry in this list—basically, it looks exactly like a crock-pot—and doesn’t have too much in the way of instinctive controls. It’s got an on/off button and a temperature dial. But its high capacity—and easy switch-ability between functions—makes it an intriguing option, especially given its capacity and price.
Operation of the Jiawanshun is 21st-century easy: Put up to 14 ounces in the well (though we suggest never putting in more than 10), adjust the temperature to 240 degrees Celsius, and walk away. The time is a bit longer—at least 24 minutes for a light roast, and upwards of 35 minutes for dark—and it’s a bit too simplistic for those who want to experiment with blends or different flavor profiles. But it gets the job done, en masse.
The Jiawanshun expressly advertises itself as not just a coffee roaster—a quick look at its product page also says it can roast peanuts, soybeans and melon seeds—so its true value may reside in how many different things you use it for.
Ease of Use
Extremely easy—just pour, set and click. You’ll be waiting a little bit more for dark roasts, but you’ll have a lot of time to catch up on your reading. Rating: 5.
Flexibility: If you’re talking about the different kinds of foods the Jiawanshun can roast, then it’s very flexible. But strictly for coffee roasting, outside of being able to adjust the temperature on the rotary dial, we’re just not sure how many variations one can get between light, city and dark roasts. Rating: 3.
Yield
The Jiawanshun says it does up to 400 grams of green coffee beans comfortably. We’re not so sure maxing out is a great idea, but it can definitely handle a lot. Rating: 5.
Features: Outside of its girth, there’s not much in the way of features aside from an internal, blade-shaped agitator and temperature control. It looks like and could be easily confused with, a slow cooker. Rating: 4
Value for Price
The Jiawanshun retails for about $120 with a one-year warranty. If you are a serious coffee hound looking for a device that makes great roasts, you can find a more specialized, dedicated coffee roaster (albeit with much less capacity) for about the same price. But if you also have soybeans that need roasting, the Jiawanshun reports for duty. Rating: 3.
The remaining two coffee roasting machines on our list are not, by any stretch of the definition, automatic devices. One of them isn’t even technically designed to be a coffee roaster. But both of them are extremely popular, and almost always come up in any conversation about coffee roasting.
Wabash Valley Farms Whirley Pop
You read that right: One of the more ubiquitous coffee roasting machines out there is actually a well-beloved stove top popcorn popper. Its suitability for coffee beans makes sense because the process for roasting coffee nearly duplicates that of making popcorn. The difference, of course, is that if you do it right the beans won’t explode.
If the burden of LCD readouts, knob fidgeting, and restricted counter space gets you down, the Whirley Pop is your solution. Operation isn’t exactly simple, but it’s easily described: You put the coffee beans in the popper, put it on a warm stove, and crank the handle on the side to agitate the beans. Within about five to ten minutes, you should have a mound full of roasted coffee ready to grind.
Of course, there are drawbacks to this approach. You can’t leave the popper unattended during the active roasting process, for one thing. Using the Whirley Pop means up to 10 minutes of crank-turning. One also has to be comfortable with either lacking the complex heating, roasting and cooling stages that automatic roasting machines provide, or controlling them all yourself.
You have to regulate the temperature on your stovetop (which, it should be noted, needs to be gas—the process is almost uncontrollable on electric). After 10 minutes of cranking, the user empties the contents into a colander and lets them cool—you’ll have no fans of which you can avail yourself. Finally, if you use a Whirley Pop for coffee, you probably shouldn’t ever use it for popcorn.
That said, some people with lots of experience with the Whirley Pop swear by it. If you have a lot of time and patience, why not?
Ease of Use
It’s simple—put coffee beans in, turn a crank over heat for ten minutes—but that doesn’t make it “easy.” You must control and adjust the temperature with no gadgets whatsoever. Rating: 3.
Flexibility
The user must maintain total control over everything and must have a gas stove to make it work. That adds up to a pretty inflexible process. Also, creating degrees of various roasts, from light and dark and everything in between, will take lots of trial and error. Rating: 3.
Yield
The good news is that the Whirley Pop can handle a fairly big amount of beans—eight ounces is probably the ideal maximum. Rating: 4.
Features: It has a crank and a flip-top. Rating: 2
Value for Price
You can purchase a Whirley Pop for between $22 and $90, depending on the materials used and its relative durability. So for the ultimate, do-it-pretty-much-all-yourself coffee roaster, it might be a treat. Rating: 3.
Nuvo Eco Handy Ceramic Bean Roaster
Unlike the Whirley Pop, the Nuvo Eco is a stove top device that is specifically made for roasting coffee beans. It’s got a couple obvious drawbacks compared to the automatic machines on our list: name, its limited capacity and total manual operation (there’s not even a crank). The good part? Many coffee fans absolutely love it. And, low yield noted, it can make a great roast.
The Nuvo Eco is a handheld, ceramic receptacle that resembles an oversize, alternative smoking pipe. It’s a shade over 9.5 inches long, with a roasting receptacle that can handle around 1 to 2.4 ounces of coffee beans at a time. That makes for a total yield of two, maybe three cups of coffee, so one roasting event is pretty much limited to your daily morning coffee regimen.
The Nuvo Eco is 100% manual: Place the beans in the “pot,” heat up a stovetop, and shake your roaster constantly for about 10 minutes. More attentive people will adjust the temperature on the stovetop as needed for each stage. The unit has a leather handle to keep your hand from getting burned.
It’s totally manual, which means there are elbow-grease and trial-and-error components that are nearly inescapable. But the upshot is that the Nuvo Eco is easy to learn how to use and can be stored easily in a counter drawer. You can also take it with you to the campgrounds for roasting over an open flame.
Ease of Use
You have to constantly shake it for 10 minutes and keep a strict eye on the temperature. So, like the Whirley Pop: simple to learn, not so easy to execute. Rating: 3.
Flexibility
You run the whole show with the Nuvo Eco. Cooling takes place in a colander, just like the Whirley Pop. However, you can use an electric stovetop with the Nuvo Eco, since you’re shaking it above the range and can just move it up and down for temp control Rating: 3.
Yield
Not much at all in the way of the volume of product, but it’s good quality. Rating: 3.
Features
It has a leather handle and looks like something Hobbits use for entertainment. The ceramic construction is great for heat conduction, though. Rating: 3
Value for Price
It retails for $30. But it’s ultra-compact, cleans up well, and commands the adoration of a lot of die hard fans. If you don’t drink a gallon of coffee per day and aren’t worried about having total manual control over the process, you might seriously consider grabbing the Nuvo Eco. Rating: 3.
Some Facts About Coffee Roasting
Green coffee beans are usually about $1 to $3 less per pound than pre-roasted beans. They’re even, ultimately, cheaper than national store-bought ground coffee brands. An 11-ounce can that retails around $4.10 works out to about $7 of beans per pound, while your average one-pound bag of green coffee beans costs around $6.
Taste is, of course, relative, but many coffee aficionados believe the best-tasting coffee in the world comes from Colombia, the country that supplies almost 15% of the world’s coffee. Central American countries, especially Guatemala and Costa Rica, Ethiopia and Jamaica also produce coffee beans that are a shade above the rest of the world.
Conclusion
Coffee roasting machines are unusual appliances because they come in sizes, shapes, and complexities for every level of expertise and interest in the fine art of coffee roasting. So whether a certain machine is right for you depends largely on how much coffee you drink, and whether you prefer a consistent roast every time, or enjoy experimenting with your own custom blends. Becoming a master roaster with one of these devices takes a lot of time and patience, but we’re certain it’s worth the effort.