Afterburners A note about afterburners: many folks believe afterburners--high temperature devices that burn the particulate and some odor out of coffee smoke--cut down dramatically on pollution. While they do remove the vast majority of Volatile Organic Compounds and Particulate Matter from the roaster exhaust, they also increase quite substantially the amount of Carbon Dioxide spewing into the air. consider our roaster, which uses a 60,000 btu burner, and imagine if we added a 400,000 btu afterburner. Even if we only turned it on for the final five minutes, you can imagine how much more greenhouse gas will escape into the environment. Add that to the increased consumption of natural gas, and you begin to get the idea that it's not a black and white issue. Anyone who thinks it is is naive. Which is worse for the environment in the long term? If we buy a larger roaster, we'll be required to use smoke abatement equipment, or to purchase a "smokeless" roaster; the latter sounds more intriguing, as it uses far less energy than even a conventional roaster/afterburner set-up, and decreases greenhouse gas emissions. For the time being, we'll stick with our 3 kilo roaster, and avoid afterburning.