Aillio Bullet R1 Meet Up: Video & Highlights

Jonas from Aillio and Thompson discuss features and issues with the Aillio Bullet R1 Coffee Roaster, at Sweet Maria’s Education room.

Last week, we had a good sized crowd here at Sweet Maria’s for our Aillio Bullet R1 Meet Up event. Tom and Julio from Sweet Maria’s were on hand to show everyone everything we know about this awesome machine.

Also, the Bullet’s inventor, Jonas Lillie was in town and was kind enough to hang out and talk with us about Aillio, a few things we never knew about the Bullet. The event went longer than expected because it’s hard to pack that much info into an hour.

Below we have some video from the Facebook Live recording of the event, but we feel the audio wasn’t as good as we hoped. Still much good information in the video!

Here’s a few highlights in no particular order:

We expect to have more Bullets for sale in October. (2018)
A Mac software update will be available in October as well.
Aillio was started by Jonas and his brother. Both came from non-coffee backgrounds but decided to take on the challenge of creating an electric coffee roasterA machine for roasting coffee. Or the person operating it! The basic requirements for a coffee roaster are a heating element that gets suitably hot and a mechanism... that could roast an entire kilogram of coffee. Many people doubted the possibility of it and during the Bullet’s inception, Jonas received feedback accusing him of attempting to scam and mislead his customers. Getting the Bullet R1 to market was done independently without the help of crowdfunding.
Every part that makes up a Bullet R1 is individually sourced. This gives Aillio full control over the build quality.
The Bullet’s induction heat coil allows for instant changes to the amount of heat applied to the coffee being roasted. Roasted batches take about 11 minutes and back to back roasts are not a problem.
The R1 comes with 2 additional inputs if you are the type that needs a few more temperature readings. Just contact Aillio for the extra sensors.
Aillio considers the R1 to be a platform that will always be improved upon. They are always adding hardware and software improvements to each version that can also be retroactively added to earlier versions. An example is the upcoming infrared sensor that will come standard with an upcoming version of the Bullet.
Did you know the slot under the sight glass window below the front panel was designed to allow excess chaffChaff is paper-like skin that comes off the coffee in the roasting process. Chaff from roasting is part of the innermost skin (the silverskin) of the coffee fruit... to fall out?
Each steel drum is sandblasted before it’s installed into the roaster. This process removes machine oil that is usually on metal parts leaving a factory. Sandblasting leaves the metal with a matte finishSimilar to aftertaste, but it refers to the impression as the coffee leaves the palate. Aftertaste is the sensations gathered after the coffee has left the mouth. We... which can make coffee beans stick to the drum while it’s rotating. This is why it’s important to season the drum with a few roasts before expecting 100% consistent results.
Some home roasters have figured out ways to use software other than Aillio’s. Jonas recommends against this since the data collected when using Aillio software can be very helpful when diagnosing any possible issues in the future.