From Whirley Pop to Aillio Bullet: The Story of My Coffee Roasters

For the past four and a half years, every pound of coffee I’ve roasted has come from a machine that wasn’t supposed to exist.

The Whirley Pop Years.

I started with a Whirley Pop on my stove and eventually took a leap of faith into business using a drum roaster I built myself from hardware store parts. Recently, demand finally outgrew what that homemade machine could do — which means it’s time to tell the story of how my roasters got me here.

The Whirley Pop is a great way to roast coffee, but it's only effective for small batch home roasting. Each batch takes about 15-20 minutes, demanding your full attention the entire time and it can only produce about 8oz at best. Going into business, I knew I needed a machine that could produce more coffee and allow me some freedom of movement.

Building Java_1

My initial plan was to simply purchase a commercial roaster, but that idea was stamped out with extreme prejudice when I saw how expensive they are. All I could do was examine how they worked and see if I could replicate it. After several months and dozens of pounds of coffee burned up in testing, it was set up for production by April. Here’s what the original machine was actually made from — nothing exotic, just creativity and accessible parts:

• MECO electric grill with rotisserie setting- $190

• Everdure aluminum rotisserie tumbler- $70

• Tritogenia variable speed rotisserie motor- $100

• 25" rotisserie spit, 3/8in- $40

• 550 degree thermometer probe- $10

Total- $410

Then there was the matter of cooling. For that, I used:

• 18" oil drum funnel- $60

• 16" stainless steel colander- $40

• Shop vac- $50

Total-$150

This entire setup cost a little over $500. It wasn’t elegant, but it worked — and more importantly, it made starting the business possible.

For reference, a commercial machine of roughly the same capacity would have cost over $3,000. I'll talk more about that later in this article.

I reached out to my uncle Ed for some feedback as I worked on this. He has been roasting coffee for a very long time and in many ways has pioneered the home roasting culture. He built his roaster years ago and the design is very similar. His is propane and can do about 10 pounds at a time whereas mine is electric and can manage about 1 pound. Nevertheless, it was very validating to see that we came up with similar ideas for our roasters.

There were a number of changes made over the course of 2 years following. Some were improvements while others weren't so helpful.

• The heat retention wasn't very good, so I lined the inside and outside with aluminum foil, shiny side facing inward.

• There was a lot of wear on the spit, so I placed a bushing on the end to cut down on the friction.*

• The spit kept sliding out of the motor mount, requiring me to slide it back in constantly. To solve this, I attached the bushing to the spit permanently.*

  • *Special thanks to my engineering friend John for those solutions!

• I attempted to purchase a larger drum for a greater capacity, only to discover the hard way that I spent $500 on something that won't work in my roaster. I treated it as a learning experience.

  • I learned an important lesson: roasting capacity isn’t just about drum size — it’s about how much thermal mass your machine can recover quickly. My 1500-watt setup simply didn’t have the power to keep up with an 11-pound load of metal and coffee.

  • Thankfully, I was eventually able to resell the drum.

• I was unable to increase the wattage to that level, but with the help of a variac, I did manage to increase the voltage by a small amount.

  • This allowed my 1 pound batch to roast in half the time, or a 2 pound batch to be done in the same amount of time as before.

  • Though it was helpful with increasing capacity and regulating temperature, there were some unintended consequences.

• My last major adjustment to the roaster was the purchase of an RK drum, this time the 2# capacity. It was a step down in capacity, but a step up in quality.

  • The Everdure tumblers are great for an inexpensive hobby roaster, but not for extended continuous use.

  • These tumblers are held together by screws on the inside. The way they're positioned causes them to loosen as the drum turns. After a while, there's a risk of finding a screw in your coffee. I had discovered one on two occasions, both ended up in my grinder. Let me tell you something, there aren't many noises out there worse than your coffee grinder catching a screw.

  • RK drums, by contrast, are welded and riveted with virtually no moving parts. They're also stainless steel, which is overall better than aluminum.

Unintended and unforeseen consequences.

Getting into the coffee business has taught me a tremendous amount about electrical demands for equipment. This was something I had to learn the hard way...

The variac was an amazing tool, but it was wearing out my heating elements more quickly than expected. Originally, I could go about 3 months before the element wore out, resulting in roasting times exceeding 25 minute batches. The added voltage cut down the life of the element to about 2 months at first, though it's possible it was a matter of usage rather than timing. I would roast approximately 100 pounds before replacing it. This wasn't a problem at first. The heating elements cost about $60/each, so it would still take a long time before maintenance became more costly than buying a new machine.

After a while, the heating elements would wear out more and more quickly. Some of them would be completely fried after only a week. Others would last a month, but were completely melted inside the thermal control housing! This was the result of shorting, which would also cut the heat. The additional voltage had nowhere to go, so heat would build up at the source, causing the element to melt. This also put a major strain on the variac.

When Demand Outgrew Ingenuity

All the while, business has only continued increasing the demand for beans. My average roasting for 2023 was under 100#/month, for 2024 it was about 110#/month, but 2025 averaged over 150#/month! It was getting expensive replacing the elements constantly. It was also getting stressful trying to maintain consistent product with a faulty machine. I knew it was time to take the plunge and purchase a new roaster.

I chose the Aillio Bullet R1 machine for a number of reasons.

• It's an electric roaster.

• Not only electric, but it didn't require a 220v outlet or anything. I would've needed someone to install one, which would've required a permit and inspection from the town.

• Its capacity is 2 pounds comfortably.

• Additionally, there is tremendous control with the heat and the power level. My old setup was simply cranking it up all the way, letting it get super hot and hoping for the best.

• Not only is there control with the heat, but control with the airflow. This is great for collecting chaff.

• It gauges the temperature of the beans. I still use my senses to gauge how far along the roasting process is, but the bean thermometer is certainly a helpful tool for consistency.

• It's more streamlined than my setup, meaning:

  • Less space on the counter.

  • More efficient chaff collection. My old method of removing chaff was a confetti party in the roasting room, which took forever to clean each time.

  • More efficient smoke discharge. My old roaster generated a tremendous amount of smoke, which impacted the flavor, stained everything in the room and was somewhat hazardous to breathe.

• The reviews are overall excellent for this machine.

• Lastly, it's almost impossible to find these machines used. Why? Because no one wants to part with them. If you want something reliable, check the market to see if used versions of it are abundant or rare.

I placed the order for the Aillio Bullet at the beginning of the year. It was $3,600, but I got 10# of coffee from El Salvador thrown in for free! Special thanks to Sweet Maria's for providing these machines at what appears to be the same price as the manufacturer. It took about 2 weeks to arrive. Two teeth-chattering weeks...

This is where everything gets interesting. The day the roaster was expected to arrive was a busy day. I have no idea why, but everyone seemed to need beans that morning. I really didn't want to fire up the old roaster, but business left me no choice. I fired up Java_1 and began roasting coffee. I managed to get a couple of batches out before I heard a loud BANG! It sounded like someone dropped a bowling ball. I looked at the variac and it was dead as a doornail. The heating element was plugged into the variac, which meant no heat was going to the beans. Unfortunately, a fuse in the variac had blown, cutting off power. Even more unfortunately, the beans in the roaster weren't far enough along to pull, nor were they early enough to cool and try again later.

I was frustrated. I was starting to panic. Orders still needed filling, and my roaster had just died mid-batch. About thirty minutes later, the UPS truck pulled in.

I gave the guy a double shot of espresso for free because I was so thrilled. With the fervor of a young boy on Christmas morning, I tore open the packaging and set it up. It actually worked out in my favor that those beans were unusable because the drum needed to run a few pounds of coffee through it to season it. After a weekend of practice and a little homework, I started feeling comfortable with my new machine.

As an added note, while writing this article, I discovered that the heating elements for the old roaster are no longer available. I suppose that means the timing couldn't have been any better!

Since bringing the new roaster online, I’ve produced nearly 300 pounds of coffee with consistency and control I could only dream about before. Still, I owe a tremendous amount to the machine that came before it. Java_1 produced more than 3,500 pounds of coffee and taught me how to roast by sight, sound, and instinct rather than screens and presets. It demanded patience, creativity, and more than a little perseverance — lessons that no commercial machine could have taught on its own.

Java_1, thank you for your years of faithful service.

And to the Aillio Bullet — here’s to the next chapter, and to many more pounds of delicious coffee ahead.