Counter Culture coffee has several roasters, one of which is a US made Renegade. The other two are a Samiac (who is now out of business) and a Roure. All three companies have a very different approach to roasting. Samiac has the most traditional approach with the utilization of thermal heat transfer.
Roure is a highbred. They, more than any manufacturer on the market, utilize extreme conduction with an air current of 6,000 ft/min in their roasters. The inner drums are also perforated. This in combination with the 3 heating methods imparts a very different taste to the coffee: conduction, convection and radiant. The burner is placed at the 'head of front' of the roaster and the blower is oriented on the top back of the roaster. The blower sucks ambient room temperature air through the front of the machine, it passes over the burner heating the air, the air is then sucked through the perforated drum at an upward angle to the top back of the machine where it is sucked / blown out. At the same time the burner itself heats the drum too. Roure also uses very thick cast iron in their roasters, everything is made from cast iron. They are absolute brick s@#t houses. They use this roaster for coffees that are clean and bright, stating it if usually used for Africans and Central Americans to emphasize the crisp high notes.
Renegade uses cast iron that is around 1/3 as thick as the Roure, so the heat retention is not as great. Their approach is similar to Roure's, but they use exactly half of the airflow at 3,000 ft/min and utilize a solid roasting drum. They state the thing they like most about it is the overall control and ability to replicate and get identical results from one roast to another. They use the Renegade for long slow roasts, usually espresso roasts to draw out and emphasize sweetness and body. Here is a video of a renegade in action. As you will notice they have a very unique sound / noise volume to them.
The Samiac uses 1,200 ft/min airflow. It is their oldest roaster, and they usually use it for specialized micro-lots as they have grow to be larger and larger over the years.
To get back to your original question, before I run off on another side tangent, US Roaster Corp roaster are going to be more along the lines of the radiant heat and conduction Samiac. They do not utilize high airflow convection in their machines.
All of this info is taken from an article I found on Counter Culture Coffee while researching the Roure Roasters versus the Renegade Roasters. The link to this article is below.
http://www.teaandcoffee.net/0408/coffee.htmAs for the Giesen Payment posted. These roasters are made by a family that has worked at the Probat factory, who have been working there / assembling roasters by had for generations. After Probat moved their manufacturing to China, quite a few of the family members were out of their jobs. As a result, they very recently, in the past year or two, have formed their own company where they still make the roasters by hand. They look very solid, but unfortunately they information you see on their site is the only information you will get on them. I contacted Willem Boot, the only distributor in the US, to get more information and he told me all of the information is on their website . . . and I told him not all of the information I wanted was, to which he did not have a response . . . There is only 1 video of a Giesen on YouTube and it is very limited to what it shows. They function a lot like the Samiac, roasting with radiant heat and conduction. They are built like complete brick s*#t houses, with everything being made of very thick cast iron.
The pricing on the Giesens from Willem Boot were $10,150 for the 1kg W1 and $20,300 for the 6kg W6. Here is the video on the W15 Giesen:
On the other hand, the Owner and President of Roure, Jaime Roure Padros, is very personable. He is a second generation owner of this manufacture, which is still a family owned and operated company out of Spain. They make all of their roasters by hand. If you email the company the owner and president himself will be the one responding to you. . . which means a lot to me. He takes a lot of pride in his roasters and is more than willing to discuss them with you to no end. He is extremely responsive through email, and at no time did I wait more then 12 hours for very thorough response to any and all of my questions.
The Roure 1Kg E1-A roaster is $5,600 (it is only made in an electric heating element setup) and the 5kg is $23,500. I believe that included shipping from Spain and installation as well. Jaime Roure Padros sends out installers from the factory so the jobs gets done right the first time.
If you are interested in any / all of these roasters, your best bet might be to contact Counter Culture coffee and see if you can plan a visit to see all three of their roasters in action. It will give you a lot of insight to really the 3 types / variations of roasters available on the market, whether it is the exact make model you are interested in or not.
I hope all of this info is useful to someone
! If you have any questions on these or any other roasters, feel free to message me either here or PM me. I know of a lot of brands that get very little recognition and have done a ton of research into all brands of roasters. Email me what you are looking for spec / result wise and I will give you my opinion / what I know.
