Professional coffee, cacao & grain roasters — made to last a lifetime.
The original drum roaster, hand-built in our Georgia machine shop — roasting ¼ lb to 45 lb an hour — true commercial-grade coffee.
A fraction of the price of $5,000–$30,000 Probat, Diedrich, Ambex & Mill City machines. Never roasted? We'll coach you through your first batch, free.
Lifetime warranty · Same physics as a $20k roaster · Free roasting help
Installs in the barbecue grill you already own.
The grill is the chamber.
The burners are the heat.
The drum tumbles the beans.
An RK Drum needs only two things to roast: a heat source and steady rotation. It works over almost any fire — even a brick pizza oven — but a common gas grill is the cheapest and most available heat source there is, which is why most roasters use one.
Same roasting physics as a $30,000 machine — a fraction of the cost, and better flavor from the perforated "flame-kissed" drum. It mounts on the gas grill you already own — and it's a genuinely rewarding project you can build and roast on at home.
How it works
Five steps, about twenty minutes. You'll be roasting like it's second nature in about five batches.
Load
Pour green beans into the drum and latch the door.
Mount
Slide it on the rotisserie, attach the motor, set it on the grill.
Heat & tumble
Light the burners; the drum turns so every bean roasts evenly.
Read the roast
Watch the temp and listen for first & second crack.
Dump & cool
Tip the beans into a cooler to lock in the flavor.
Want it hands-off? RoastPilot runs the heat for you from your phone — set your profile and walk away.
Roast by feel — or roast by app.
Every RK drum runs both ways. Read the roast yourself, or hand the whole thing to RoastPilot — same drum, same flame-kissed flavor. You decide how much you drive.
Roast artisan. Learn the craft.
Roast by artisan method, the way roasters have for a century — time and temperature, sight and smell. Listen for first and second crack, watch the color turn, catch the aroma. Nothing between you and the beans, so you truly learn the art and craft of coffee roasting.
- ✓ Time & temperature — your call
- ✓ Crack, color & aroma — read the roast live
- ✓ No screens, no lock-in — pure hands-on craft
Set it. RoastPilot runs it.
Let the RoastPilot app drive the whole roast — precise temperature control, repeatable profiles and full logging, just like the $30,000 computerized machines. Dial a profile in once and hit it batch after batch.
- ✓ Full roast control from your phone
- ✓ The complete app on iPhone & Android
- ✓ Repeatable, logged, computerized precision
See it roast.
A batch on the drum — and where it leads: a real roaster's story.
How much can you roast?
A roast runs about 20 minutes — so roughly three batches an hour, and each drum takes a ~20% overload. Pick your drum by the volume you need.
Max roast volume/hour ≈ rated drum size × 3, +20% per batch.
| Drum | Max batch | Max roast / hour |
|---|---|---|
| 2 LB | ~2.4 lb | ~7 lb/hr |
| 4 LB | ~5 lb | ~15 lb/hr |
| 6 LB | ~7.5 lb | ~22 lb/hr |
| 8 LB | ~10 lb | ~30 lb/hr |
| 12 LB | ~14 lb | ~43–45 lb/hr |
Commercial-roaster coffee.
Backyard-grill price.
Even commercial roasters with $30,000 machines reach back for an RK to roast their specialty coffees — the perforated drum's direct "flame-kissed" contact is flavor a sealed commercial drum can't touch.
| RK Drum | Probat · Ambex · Diedrich · Mill City | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $220 – $1,055 | $5,000 – $30,000+ |
| Throughput | ~7 – 45 lb/hr | comparable |
| The physics | identical drum-roast | identical |
| Flavor | perforated — flame-kissed | solid drum, no contact |
| Repairs | modular, field-replaceable | sealed; factory service |
| Automation | RoastPilot — from your phone | costly add-on / manual |
Which one is for you?
For your roastery / to sell
Roastery volume without a five-figure machine — up to ~45 lb/hr. Commercial cup, a tenth the price.
8 / 12 LB Everything Kit + RoastPilot →
New to roastingFresh coffee at home
Anyone can do this. Start with the low-risk 4 LB kit — about a bag per roast — and we teach you the rest.
4 / 6 LB Everything Kit →
A giftFor the coffee lover
Lifetime warranty, free coaching, and the theatre of roasting on a grill — a gift that keeps giving fresh coffee.
See gift kits →
Two ways to buy every kit: à-la-carte parts · Everything Kit (recommended — everything but the grill).
Your store-bought coffee is already stale.
The coffee in your cup this morning was roasted weeks ago and is well past its peak — you've just gotten used to it. Fresh-roasted peaks 24–48 hours out, with none of the stale bitterness. Green beans are cheap, keep for a year, and you control the whole roast.
- ✓ Fresh — peaks in 24–48h
- ✓ Flavor — no stale bitterness
- ✓ Cheaper by the pound
- ✓ Your roast, your way
Never ruin a batch.
RoastPilot holds the heat for you.
Worried you'll waste good green beans? RoastPilot tracks bean temperature in real time, automates the heat to hold your target, and saves profiles so every roast repeats — the way a commercial machine does, from your phone.
Real-time data · Automated heat · Repeatable roasts
Lock in the roast.
The instant a roast hits your target, the heat has to come out — beans keep cooking until they're cool, and every extra second changes the cup. An RK cooler pulls the heat fast with a powerful fan and a food-grade stainless tray, so your roast tastes exactly the way you called it.
- ✓ Cools a full batch in minutes
- ✓ Food-grade stainless
- ✓ Model R & Model F
You'll be an expert in about five roasts.
Every RK owner gets us on the phone — real roasters who'll walk you through your first batch, the how and the why. No competitor hands you a coach; with RK it's included, free, for as long as you need it.
Ron Kyle founded RK Drums in 2002. Real steel, real craft, 20+ years.
Crafting artisan coffee with steel & sparks.
We forge every drum by hand, one at a time — then you bring the fire. The perforated steel lets the flame kiss the beans: in head-to-head roasts the RK has matched and beaten $30,000 Probat, Diedrich and Ambex machines.
The RK Drum.
Hand-built from solid steel.
Every drum is cut, welded and inspected by hand in our Georgia shop — one at a time, never an assembly line. Solid 304 stainless, not the thin aluminum everyone else switched to: it takes 700 lbs to crush one. Over 3,000 sold, fewer than 10 ever returned; one customer has logged 4,000 roasts on a single 4LB. Buy it once.
- ✓ Flame-kissed flavor
- ✓ Lifetime warranty
- ✓ 2–12 lb batches
- ✓ Mounts on any grill
Start roasting this weekend.
Commercial-quality coffee on the grill you already own — with our team in your corner. Lifetime warranty, free coaching.