Behmor

[eaglemick]

Welcome to the club

I got my Behmor for Christmas last year and I'm 67 roasts in now. I also find you get a more consistent roast with 220/230g on the 1/2lb setting. Enjoy the journey and keep taking notes!

[Andy]

I agree.... take lots of notes, it's the best way to review what worked and what didn't and will help develop patterns in what suits your taste best.

You are sitting in front of the roaster watching it anyway, might as well record some data to help with the journey!

[Cicarda]

I tend to roast new beans as single origin roasts and tend to use 1/2lb P2 A and use 200g. and have always reached first and second cracks when needed. I usually do a couple of roasts trying to get a medium and a darker roast and then taste over the next couple of weeks. Take plenty of notes. depending on how they taste, then use them in various blends. Usually when I blend I Use 300g 1lb P2 C this gives me about 250g of brown beans. This usually last me 10 to 14 days. Taste and take more notes. Adjust blend for next time. This profile seems to give me very consistent roasts with cracks occuring when they should and never run out of time. Have others had good results with different profiles eg P3 4 or 5?? I guess I should start to be a bit more a bit more adventurous! There's only so much caffeine one can consume! Recently purchased 10kg from greenbay so now looking forward to roasting days!
Cicarda

[eaglemick]

I tend to use P2 for Central American and Indo beans and P3 for African and Brazilian. Always gives me a nice consistent roast.

The only exception so far has been Sulawesi Tana Toraja where I roast 300g on 1 P5 C and use the brush in the door between 1c and 2c to delay 2c.

[jbjabiru]

Very interesting, thanks for the help. What is a hard bean and a soft bean ?

[Kruno]

I got my Behmor today, also included a nice freebie, thanks Andy.

My two issues:
During the first dry off, 1/4 P + start, a funny burning-like smell came from the machine at the 5 minute mark. I immediately hit cool not knowing if this was normal or not. No visible smoke was coming out of the machine.

Simple Green doesn't seem easily obtainable from any local stores, and Ajax and whatnot are abrasive, can I use dish washing detergent, that shouldn't be abrasive or harsh right?

[eaglemick]

Hi Kruno,

I don't recall any funny smell on mine. Did you remove the tray and drum for the dry off?

Re: simple green, should be able to pick it up from any Bunnings store.

[Dragunov21]

Simple Green doesn't seem easily obtainable from any local stores, and Ajax and whatnot are abrasive, can I use dish washing detergent, that shouldn't be abrasive or harsh right?

Tried Bunnings?

[jbjabiru]

It is available from Bunnings, they seem to be the importer of it. it is an American made product.

[Kruno]

No, I put it all in like a normal roast would go.

Thanks guys.

[Andy]

During the first dry off, 1/4 P + start, a funny burning-like smell came from the machine at the 5 minute mark. I immediately hit cool not knowing if this was normal or not. No visible smoke was coming out of the machine.

Seriously loaded question as it's damn tricky identifying a "funny smell" from this far away.

As long as you removed all the packaging from inside the roaster then the smell might just be the manufacturing smell... which is the reason you are doing the dry burn in the first place. Machinery oils, fingerprints and other stuff is common in any new equipment so the first burn should remove most of it.

This below query moved from an email I just received...

I clean the internal surfaces of my Behmor regularly, but tend to stay away from the heating elements. Any recommendations on cleaning them as they look like they are getting some buildup which will likely affect performance perhaps?

Nah, don't get too hung-up on cleaning the elements (glass tubes covering the heating wires). The chance of damage is too high and the small amount of build-up will have near no detrimental effect.

Cleaning the walls (particularly right side where the sensor is) and cleaning the glass covering the light (better vision) are the most important areas to clean. Removing all the chaff between roasts and doing dry burns stops any oil build-up. The elements will have some (dry) smoke residue and won't pose an ignition risk or a performance quirk.


Happy roasting!

[Kruno]

I completed the dry burn today and no smell came from it. You are right it was the manufacturing smell. I went to Bunnings today and bought Simple Green and a microfiber cloth.

Did my first roast and it came up a perfect mid-roast; Brazilian Bourbon. I really should have bought the Coffeesnobs roasting chart as I have trouble telling just how medium my beans are.

Cleaning was pretty straight forward, but I wonder if using a vacuum cleaner would be better to get rid of all the chaff? I cleaned the elements by gently brushing them with the brush, but thanks for mentioning that Andy, I am a little too caught up on safety, and so I thought that my cleaning had to be perfect to prevent a fire hazard.

For an Aeropress brew can I wait a day before brewing my beans, or do I have to do the 3-10 day waiting period?

[Chrisj1984]

What a great roaster!!!!
Im a newbie to roasting and am having a ball experimenting so far.
Thanks to the coffee hardware sales section of CS i am a very happy owner of a used behmor.
Very helpful thread also.

[lemoo]

Kruno I use a vacuum cleaner and the brush after every roast. chaff is light so it gets sucked up really easily and makes the cleaning really painless

I pretty much hold the brush in one hand and vacuum in another and just clean the whole unit. finished in under 30 secs

Don't forget to give it a good wipe down with simple green and run the clean cycle every 5 roasts like what Andy said as it prevents oil residue build up!

[Kruno]

I did the clean-up cycle and found it quite interesting that I could smell the two different types of beans, I had roasted over the 5 roasts, at the same time. I am surprised that coffee beans contain that much oil, and also surprised no one has invented an olive oil alternative, coffee oil.

I sprayed some Simple Green on a paper towel until it was wet, and then went over the sides, and then I wiped it off with a dry paper towel.

There seems to be a discrepancy of using 1/4P Start and 1/2P Start to do the dry burn process. I used the information on the website and the info sheet that came with the product as they seem to be up to date, but the manual is wrong. Is there any reason why they changed the information?