I managed to pick up a 2nd hand Behmor roaster yesterday, in Darwin! The previous owner also threw in around 6-7kg of leftover beans that he no longer needed. Result! If most of them turn out ok, that will be a fair bit of the money claimed back from the purchase compared to buying locally.
I didn't get the machine home in time to do a roast last night, so had to wait until I got home from work today.
I decided to just jump in at the deep end, and try for a "proper" roast, 300g beans, using the 1lb, p2, c setting that the previous owner recommended. Luckily I have some sacrificial beans to use for my initial practice roasts, some Peru segunda wilds purchased from CS a couple of years ago.
The description for these back then was "Wild picked, ugly, chipped, broken, blacks, odd sized and unsorted.* It roasts uneven but if you can look past all the indicators that this will be a bad coffee then in the cup you will find that it produces what can only be described as a 5 bean single origin blend.* Milled by Cafe Perusha this coffee is sold as a commercial base bean but it drinks ok by itself.* Good body, low acidity and at $7/kg this bargain coffee will surprise you."
Now these are not just any old Peru Segunda Wilds, these are Peru Segunda Wilds that have sat in a dark cupboard in the humidity of Darwin for around two years (possibly 3 summers) so they didn't look too pretty before I even started (I hereby submit photo 1 as evidence).
The machine started with 21 minutes and 30 seconds on the clock, and was down to somewhere near 10:00 by the time I heard the initial first crack. I wedged the door open with a wooden spoon, and let 1st crack roll on by before closing the door up and waiting for the initial sounds of 2nd crack which occurred with 6:30 left on the clock. I immediately hit cool, opened the door a bit more and let the beans cool down.
I am pleasantly surprised by the roast - yes there is a little inconsistency, but when the green beans varied by as much as they did, I am surprised the roast came out as well as it did.
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