Sedona Elite 3200 Commercial Roaster
Do you run a bustling coffee shop or some other business where you’d like to offer your customers world-class specialty coffee drinks and/or the option to buy fresh ground coffee direct from you? Are you looking for a great roaster that won’t eat up a lot of space in your commercial kitchen, or break the bank?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you’re going to love the Sedona Elite 3200 commercial roaster. This stellar machine only narrowly missed being our top overall pick. It is an exceptional value for the money, offering users precise control, enormous consistency, and superb quality.
Having said all that, every machine has its shortcomings, and the 3200 is no exception. In the sections that follow, we’ll cover it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so you’ve got all the information you need to make an informed decision.
An Overview of the Sedona Elite 3200 Roaster
Form Factor, Footprint & Aesthetic
The 3200 has been described as a tabletop roaster, and it is indeed small enough to fit on a large table or utility cart if it’s your desire to do so. The machine’s overall dimensions are 44” x 26” x 44,” and it weighs in at a hefty 330 pounds, so if you do opt to set it on a tabletop, you’ll want to make sure it’s a sturdy table!
Aesthetically, it would be a stretch to call it an attractive machine, but it’s certainly fair to say that it’s better looking than many of its peers. As an added bonus, it’s offered in two different colors, so it should be no problem to get one that blends in well with the overall aesthetic of your kitchen.
Features and Capabilities
The Sedona Elite 3200 roaster offers a full range of capabilities, on par with, or exceeding the feature set of every other commercial roaster in its class, including:
And more...
The 3200 is also offered in both LP Gas and all-electric configurations, although most serious roasters will tell you that they prefer gas, for the same reasons Master Chefs prefer cooking on gas stovetops rather than electric. It just gives you better control and more consistent results.
The manufacturer takes pains to draw attention to the fact that their machine was designed by former aerospace engineers and NASA employees, and is built using laser-cut, precision parts.
While we find the first fact to be interesting, we wouldn’t regard it as a reason to pick the 3200 over some other model, although the laser-cut parts and precision manufacturing definitely got our attention.
Capacity
The 3200 has an impressive range, allowing you to do anything from small 13-ounce test batches, all the way up to production roasts as large as seven pounds. Note that on the company’s website, they mention that you can roast batches as large as eight pounds, but we haven’t found anyone who would recommend doing so, and based on that, we consider seven pounds to be the effective maximum batch size.
Roasting times range from 10-22 minutes depending on how dark you like your beans, and the machine has no trouble doing back to back roasts. While your first batch is cooling in the tray, feel free to add more beans to the drum and keep going!
Doing this (again, depending on how dark you’re roasting) means that you can complete 3-5 roasts an hour. In other words, don’t let its modest size fool you. The Sedona 3200 can keep pace with the demands of even the busiest of coffee houses.
Presets and Controls
While the Elite 3200 commercial roaster doesn’t have any presets, they’re not really necessary, given the USB port and the ability to create your own custom profiles.
Our recommendation is to grab your favorite open source roast profiling software and spend some time running small test batches to master the machine’s essential use and to create a profile you genuinely love. Once you do, replication will be a snap, and you can ramp up your production as needed.
If you’ve never worked with roast profiling software before, you’ll find that the most popular options all have lively, active communities that have grown up around them, and veteran profilers will be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.
In terms of controls, the 3200 is exceptionally well designed and engineered. While it would be a mistake to say there’s no learning curve at all, it’s a reasonably intuitive machine to use, and you’ll be forging ahead with your first test batch in almost no time, once the machine is set up.
You’ll find that the roaster produces fantastically even heat, and you can control it, the airflow, and the rotational speed of the drum to fine-tune each roast you do.
Remember though that you are the most critical element in the equation here. Let your eyes and ears guide you and tell you when the roast is complete. The machine will help you here, by making that easy to do. It’s easy to view the color change of the beans, and if you need more light, a small, soft spotlight is provided as well.
Watch the progression of the change, and listen for the first and second cracks, and you’ll be all set.
Smoke Suppression
Smoke suppression is above average on the machine. It’s got a good ventilation system, but be aware that its effectiveness is directly tied to the amount of regular maintenance you give the machine. If the vent ports become clogged, you’re going to have serious issues. Proper maintenance is a must!
Chaff Management, Cleaning, and Maintenance
The Sedona Elite 3200 roaster’s chaff management system is also above average. As before though, that’s only true as long as you pay proper attention to maintenance.
A good rule of thumb is to give the machine a thorough cleaning after about every five roasts, but your eyes will be your guide here. It will be quite apparent when the machine needs cleaning, and in general, you’ll find that the darker you roast, the more often you’ll need to press pause and clean.
Here, the unit’s exceptional engineering really shines. Everything is easy to access, and cleaning won’t keep you out of commission for very long.
Pros & Cons of the Sedona Elite 3200 Roaster
There’s a lot to like about the roaster. It’s well-priced, full-featured, and built to exacting standards using laser-cut parts. It’s also got a magnificent capacity, making it robust enough to keep pace with the demands of even the busiest coffee houses.
Note that if your main business is grinding and selling fresh-roast coffee by the pound, then you’re probably going to want something with even more capacity. This one, however, is ideal for coffee houses who derive the bulk of their profit from selling their product by-the-cup and sell some fresh ground coffee as a sideline.
Having said that, the 3200 has one drawback that may or may not be a deal breaker for you. The company has had some customer service issues in the past, which gave them the reputation for being unresponsive to customer concerns.
Those problems seem to have been solved, but it does serve as a black mark against them and was the main reason they weren’t our top pick in our best coffee bean roaster machine review.
Sedona Elite 3200 Commercial Roaster Review Conclusion
While it’s true that the Sedona Elite 3200 commercial roaster is technically within reach of a small segment of the household market, home roasters would likely struggle to make use of even a fraction of its capability, so we don’t recommend it for home use at all. If you decide to get it anyway, it’s almost certainly going to have to go in your garage, as anything less than a truly palatial home kitchen would struggle to find a permanent home for the machine, tabletop or no.
On the other hand, it hits the sweet spot where coffee shops are concerned, offering more than enough in the way of output to keep pace with by-the-cup demand for fresh grounds, and the sale of coffee by the pound.
For these people, we highly recommend it, with the word of caution about the company’s unfortunate, spotty customer service reputation.
Best Online Offers for the Sedona Elite 3200 Commercial Roaster
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