What Home Coffee Roaster do you Use

Koffee_Kosmo

A new Topic Heading for

[size=20pt]What Home Coffee Roaster do you Use[/size]

"Its also a Personal Review Thread"

Is your roaster purchased from a store or DIY


In general you can discus about your current set up

1] What made you decide that home roasting is worth a go
2] Anything interesting? First roast anecdotes or humour (we all need a chuckle)
3] Pros & Cons of you home roaster
4] Your journey from the beginning to the present
5] Recommend or Not
6] Mods to date (if any)
7] Impressions
8] Closing notes

KK

RichardM

0] What brand, model Behmor 1600 1] What made you decide that home roasting is worth a go Didn't really think it was worthwhile, but for the sake of a $12 popper, gave it a whirl, liked the result, realised how much cheaper it was to roast myself (I make nearly everything from scratch where it is practical food wise). 2] Anything interesting? First roast anecdotes or humour (we all need a chuckle) First roast came out ok, I was very nervous sitting on the deck. The missus kept glaring at me asking me "are you sure that table can take the heat" (the table was tempered glass, and there was next to no heat anyway). I hit cool way too early, but nothing bad has really happened with this piece of equipment. 3] Pros & Cons of you home roaster Pros - Relatively consistent roasts throughout beans - Hard to burn yourself - Hard to kill yourself (shapeshifter - I'm looking your way!) - Small footprint - Quiet - Well priced Cons - I am absolutely 100% convinced that every one of these units is different, so sharing roast profiles etc is pretty well pointless in my opinion. - Small roast size (I know this is the same as every other home roaster though, so not bad) - Chaff is a problem if you want a rapid cool 4] Your journey from the beginning to the present Not really much to say. As I said, in the beginning got a popper, moved to this very quickly. I've roasted probably 20kg through it now, so know the ins and outs. 5] Recommend or Not Recommended, but certainly not for everyone. The issue of chaff is a big one. Once the roast finishes, it takes around 8 minutes to cool off the beans if you leave it alone. If you want a more rapid cooling (which most people would), you need to open the door and either blow a fan in the roasting chamber, which blows chaff everywhere, or remove the drum (which involves you burning yourself). For me, the issue is a small one, because I just blow the chaff out the garage door onto the lawn. 6] Mods to date (if any) No mods, but while roasting, I do crack the door open. Also, the ability for this machine to operate within spec is pretty well impossible. You simply cannot roast 1lb of beans in the machine. I have found on a cold day, you can run around 300g, and on a warm day you can push it to ~330g depending on the roast profile. Bear in mind, these findings are based on MY behmor, which won't be the same as everyone elses. 7] Impressions Build quality, for a low priced chinese made piece of equipment is actually really good. The door seals nicely, the chaff collector is well made. 8] Closing note I can't really see myself upgrading this roaster anytime soon for personal use. If roasting for many other people, I think it could get a bit tedious, and there are plenty of options that will do larger batches for not much more money. If I were to upgrade this, I think it would only be if I came across a commercial 1kg second hand roaster for an exceptional price, or I started selling beans to a lot more people. - RichardM - getting RSI one post at a time. Thanks KK

Dry_bean.

The images below are of the bread maker shortly after setting up about 18 months ago, will take a shot of the current arrangement and post it asap. 1What made you decide that home roasting is worth a go  The challenge as well as the freshness factor. 2] Anything interesting? First roast anecdotes or humour (we all need a chuckle)    A very uninteresting initiation, started with a dog bowl and wooden spoon before progressing to the bread maker. 3] Pros & Cons of you home roaster   Lots of Pro's, cheap and easy to set up, very easy to use and regulate, simple, will handle up to 700 grams of green with ease, the whole process is fast, from weighing out the greens to clean up takes approx 30 mins. Cons, honestly cant think of any, perhaps chaff blowing around the shed, other than that, none. 4] Your journey from the beginning to the present    Very straight forward really, started with the dog bowl setup and progressed to the bread maker a few months later, have yet to have a failure and I've been roasting weekly for about 18 months. 5] Recommend or Not    Thoroughly recommend. 6] Mods to date (if any)    Have made a heat gun support that covers approx 3/4 of the top of the BM, it also creates air flow that expells most of the chaff during the roasting process. 7] Impressions    Easy to make/set up, good roasting capacity, reliable, cheap, produces excellent results.

Rider

on 1306653223:

0] What brand, model Behmor 1600 Cons - I am absolutely 100% convinced that every one of these units is different, so sharing roast profiles etc is pretty well pointless in my opinion.

Absolutely right Richard. I have 2 of them and they take vastly different amounts to achieve the same profile. One will do 360g, while the other is pushing to do 310g. quote - Also, the ability for this machine to operate within spec is pretty well impossible. You simply cannot roast 1lb of beans in the machine. I have found on a cold day, you can run around 300g, and on a warm day you can push it to ~330g depending on the roast profile. Bear in mind, these findings are based on MY behmor, which won't be the same as everyone elses. /quote Agreed - although I can roast 1lb (455g) if the weather conditions permit and it takes around 22 minutes to do so. That is in one machine, the other one, no chance. They are very susceptible to ambient temperature change. Rider.