Help! I've just been given a HotTop. What do I do?

For those who don't know, a Hot Top is a home coffee roaster that operates a bit like a miniature version of the commercial roasters. It roasts in a perforated steel drum that rotates while the air temperature around it ramps up to the right temperature. When the beans are roasted, they are ejected into a cooling tray where ambient air is blown through the beans that are stirred with a paddle. The whole thing takes 20-25 minutes.

So, if you find yourself with one of these machines, how do you start? These instructions are written for the KN-8828, a model that is no longer made, but was the most widely distributed in the UK.

1. Buy some green beans. Decent ones. Remember GIGO? Garbage-in, garbage-out. I'd suggest something from Has Bean Coffee. The roaster takes 250g per batch, so that's all you need. You may wish to buy several different ones, although there's mileage in buying two bags the same for while you're learning. That way, you can compare the results. I'd suggest something forgiving, too. A Kenyan would be ruined if it went too dark; an Indonesian mustn't be too bright. Something like a Colombia probably has a good range. Don't roast a decaf to start with - they're much harder to get right. Also stay clear of Monsoon Malabar for the same reason.
2. Press the power button on the Hot Top to turn it on. The Hot Top manual then encourages you to choose how dark to roast, by pressing the "Temp" button repeatedly until you get your choice of 1-7. Don't do that. It's far too course - you have no control. Always choose Temp = 7, then stop the roast when you decide it's time. So press the Temp button 7 times, or until number 7 lights up, then press Start
3. The machine now starts to warm up. This takes about 5 minutes. When it's ready, it beeps repeatedly at you. Lift the lid, and pour your beans inside. Replace the lid. Now start a stopwatch. You want to record what you've done, as you'll learn from each roast you do.
4. The beans slowly turn yellow in colour, then pale brown, then golden brown. The smell shifts from drying grass to smell a toast-like smell. About 16-17 minutes later (it varies), you reach a key stage in the roast - "1st crack". How load this is varies from bean to bean, but you're listening for a noise like snapping a pencil. The pops start every few seconds, and at their peak will be 5-10 pops per second. The molecular structure of the bean is changing. The beans darken to a mid brown. And finally the pops die down. You can stop any time from the middle of 1st crack onwards, but for this first roast we're going to keep going.
5. The next stage is second crack. There can be a gap of 30 seconds to 2 minutes between the end of 1st crack and the start of second, but sometimes there's hardly any gap at all. This is quieter, more like popping corn, or snapping a toothpick rather than a pencil. The little pops are closer together as well. The smell changes, too - less toast, more like burning hay! (Don't believe anyone who tells you they love the smell of coffee roasting - it's the grinding that releases the gorgeous smells!)
6. When the time comes, dump the beans. Press the "Eject" button on the roaster. A little magnetically controlled tap door opens at the back of the roasting chamber and the beans appear in the cooling tray, and that starts to stir. Five minutes later, the machine will beep a few times before stopping.
7. If before you're ready to dump, the machine starts to beep, that means it's nearing the end of the time that a "Temp 7" cycle gives you. You're not ready, and the beeping is stopping you from listening to the beans. So press the "Plus" button to get an extra 30 seconds. You can do this up to 5 times before it ignores you and dumps anyway. By this point, you'd be close to combustion, so that's not a limitation!
8. After the machine finishes, bag the beans into a clean dry bag, prefereably one with a one-way degassing valve on. They will give off quite a lot of carbon dioxide over the next few days, and you want a release for that gas. The added bonus is that the degassing will expel most of the oxygen from the bag, which will preserve your beans. The beans will be at their best 24-72 hours after roasting. (Too soon, they have a funny metallic taste - they need to degas a bit first).
9. Clean your machine. Pull out the chaff tray and empty in the bin. Wipe the inside of the glass door. Every 2-3 cycles, I remove the 4 screws on the front steel panel (behind the glass door), and remove the drum to hoover out the inside and clear any debris. Don't overtighten those screws when you put them back on.
10. Eventually, the filters need changing, but the rear filter is every 40 cycles, and the top one is every hundred, so forget that for now.

Never leave an operating roaster unattended. Second crack happens at a bean temperature of about 210 C, so the drum will be even hotter. You get the picture.

You cannot beat fresh-roasted coffee. It only really keeps for a week or two, and being able to roast your own leaves you in control of what coffees you have, and how they are roasted. It's a journey that, once begun, is hard to travel back from. Enjoy!