My current range hood is old and underpowered so I was considering upgrading it to a more powerful one and using it to deal with the exhaust. But, my range hood doesn’t duct outside. Has anyone had any success with a the kind of range hood that just circulates inside through a filter, or is the exhaust too much? I want to avoid a permanent ducting setup on the wall if I can.
Plain and simple, it will not be smoke free. It will help some, but not to the point of keeping your windows closed. But, once you’ve opened the windows, a range hood doesn’t make much sense. I have one that ducts outside, but I don’t use it during warmer months.
Makes sense. So during warmer months do you do anything to vent it out the window or just let it drift out on its own?
I use an AC Infinity fan and ducting with window kit that can be easily removed so no permanent installation is necessary. It works well with no smoke escaping inside the room. You may find something like that useful to solve the issue of ventilation. To vent inside only with no outside ventilation I believe you would need an afterburner. I have not seen anybody implementing those outside a commercial building/environment. I think that option would be much more expensive and resource intensive (possibly dangerous as well).
I encourage vetting out if you can using the kit mentioned by @drink_your_coffee . I have a range hood that vents out and even with window in kitchen slightly opened I had my smoke detector go off before when roasting dark. Secondly, the exhaust/fumes is not good to breath in - I think there is a post here somewhere that someone measured the VOC and posted a photo of the reading, it’s rather high.
Inline fan and active carbon filter that I place on my balcony. The neighbours have complained that they can’t smell coffee as they used to. 
As drink_your_coffee said, people do use afterburners for commercial size roasters, but those afterburners also vent outside. There are electrostatic precipitators, like the Giesen one and also Avirnaki, which should be another precipitator although they don’t specifically state that. There are non-branded ones on Aliexpress. Regardless of branding, they’re all huge. There’s also VortX that filters smoke through water. But all of them, no matter what they say on their site, need to vent outside. All in all, there’s no way around it. You must vent outside, no matter how much you spend or what filtration you install.
@blacklabs Well, that seems like a far nicer death than the one from breathing air and drinking water. At least you know that you’ve done something hazardous.
I’m currently setting up extraction with ducting outside. But seen people using these sort of units for indoor venting and also this. I actually have an air quality device which I never thought of using to check air quality during roasting, once I have my setup in place will definitely check VOC and other measurements.
No. I’ve asked at the WOC 2022, as there were some people roasting on the Bullet, using a fume extractor, and they said it’s OK for smaller batches at a fair, but in no way a viable option by themselves when you roast at home. Those are good if you do 500g every week or so, but you’d also have to keep a window open or ajar. And you’d also have to replace the activated carbon often. Better buy a good, large, activated carbon filter and inline fan.
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I totally agree with you, nothing can beat well made permanent ducting setup. I guess @cheeryice5136.UykJ is looking for any viable alternatives and suggestions.
Hey y’all! Thanks for the input. I found my range actually does vent to the outside, so I’m trying upgrading my range hood first to a modern one with a more powerful fan and if that’s not working out am gonna setup a window duct system like y’all described here. Thank you everyone!
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