Need some Behmor help.

[bookworm1707]

I am up to about my 15th roast and I have yet to have one that I have liked. For all the roast I have used the peru de silva estate, they have all been the same power point and all inside so similar ambient temps.

Prior to the Behmor I was coretto roasting and was reasonably happy. About 9 minutes to FC and another 5? to second then cool.

I have tried mostly 1/2 P2 and all the different letters with 225gm of beans. I found I was not getting any cracks so I dropped the voltage from 240 to 230.

I then started to get cracks but it seemed they would merge.

I have just tried 1/2 P1 and 225gm and only just started to get cracks into the cooling cycle.

Basically all the roasts have come out smelling burnt to various degrees. The beans have not always looked burnt, mostly I would like to have roasted darker but am too scared. I have ditched two batches that were crispy! Mostly I can drink the resulting coffee but not great and sometimes not even good.

when I was buying commercially roasted beans I was making great coffee so happy with my cupping etc.

Not sure what I should do....

[Andy]

...I think you forgot the "please" in the subject.
(demanding sounding requests are often ignored my many people on forums... and real life!)

Lowering the weight of beans would be the first place I would start to troubleshoot your roasting.

Try...
200g of the Peru
1/2lb
P2
Start.

Using the Peru, we did 20 odd roasts like that on the stand at CafeBiz on the weekend and all of them were winners! (except the first one that someone got distracted and made some extra smoke.... but we won't mention that one)

You will most likely have to manually hit cool before the time is finished, depending on the ambient temp maybe 1.5-2 minutes before the timer finishes. Hit cool at the very first sound of second crack and I think you should be close to right.

[Lasanmarcomelb]

Need some Behmor help.

I've been knocking out some great roasts with 300gm, 1 pound P2 A. Usually at 2nd crack with about 1 minute to go depending on the bean. Also started data logging the temp and found that this setting gave me the most even application of heat.

[bookworm1707]

Need some Behmor help.

Sorry Andy, I try to keep my subject titles brief and to the point so people can easily see if it is something that is relevant to them. (Also my frustration may have been coming through a bit!)

Will try what you suggest and report back. Thank you!

[Andy]

I try to keep my subject titles brief and to the point so people can easily see if it is something that is relevant to them. (Also my frustration may have been coming through a bit!)

I know and understand which is why I replied... if I thought it was as demanding as it sounded I would have ignored it like everyone else that read it.

I've been knocking out some great roasts with 300gm, 1 pound P2 A. Usually at 2nd crack with about 1 minute to go depending on the bean

Yep. I think you are far better using less than the maximum weight and having more control over where you "hit cool". Stopping where you are is before that profile ramps back to 100%... and very similar to what I do on a commercial drum roaster.

[Dean_Bean]

+1 for playing with the weights and having a good play. The roasting process in a Behmor is a different beast to a Coretto and takes some adjusting, and while it requires less intervention, you definitely need to be watching and ready to hit cool as those cracks come on.

For me, 300g to 320g on 1-P2-B is a reliable one, first crack comes on at the start of the temp drop, and second crack near the end before the temp ramps up. As soon as it starts, I stop the roast and dump them in an external cooler.

Were you datalogging with your Coretto? Getting a look at the temps in the Behmor is almost indispensible in my opinion - but drilling holes in your shiny new roaster is probably not palatable.

If you can have a laptop nearby or similar, running roasterthing alongside your Behmor is another great way to visualise what's happening inside and knowing which way to adjust (program, bean weight, when to eject etc etc) so you get incrementally closer to an ideal roast.

Oh, and finally, if you're not already doing so, using an external cooler rather than the Behmor cooling cycle gives you some much needed control too. Just be careful of handling hot drums and such.

[Lasanmarcomelb]

Need some Behmor help.

I also found there is a massive difference in temp drop if you just point a fan into the open behmor door. Not a bad option if you haven't got external cooler on the go.

[phrostyboi]

just to add another set of ideas for when you're more used to the behmor

almost every roast I now do is 280gm, 1lb setting, P4 or P5 and time setting D

just on first crack I usually prop the door open a tiny bit with a wooden brush (about a 1cm gap), or open it to the first 'stop' (about 4 cm) and let it get to the start of second crack, I find the door open creates just a bit more gap between first and second for me, when I cool the beans I normally have about a minute left on the timer

not a bad roast for the last few months

[shapeshifter]

I'm also another one that is now roasting on P4/P5, I definitely have a better taste coming from my beans.

[Adam1982]

I'm in the same boat as you with about 15-20 roasts under my belt.

I pretty much wrote off the sample pack just trying to get the hang of things. Going from under roasted to over roasted and never being able to hit the sweet spot. Under roasting was caused by my fear of causing a fire and over roasting was caused by not knowing when to hit cool.

Reading these forums and others really helped me, the thing about the Behmor is that there is loads of info out there.

I think i've used trial and error to get me to a point that i am happy with the results. It's true what everyone says about using a lighter weight than what the profile says e.g. 200g instead of 225g for 1/2 profile. Also keep a log of how each roast goes and tweak the next roast accordingly and you'll get there.

I roasted some Rwanda Ruhaha last night which i thought came out quite nice. I only roasted 100g initially on 1/4P3C with an 11 minute roast time and hitting the cool button at about 1:45 left, first crack happened at about 3:10-3:15. I've attached a pic of the roast, which is the first roast ive managed not to burn and not to under roast. They actually look slightly darker because of the lighting.

I am still far from an expert, still a novice actually, but these were some of the things that helped me. It's enjoyable when you get it right and bloody frustrating when you get it wrong, but it's all part of the learning process.

Good luck moving forward.

[Rumo]

I am quite curious about the P2 vs P4 with an open door trick, has anyone run some side by side comparisons? According to some opinions, in the case of the Behmor most of the heat absorbed by the beans will be radiant heat from the elements - if this were true, it would suggest that a well managed P2 might be more successful than opening the door, i.e. the full on elements would still provide quite a lot of heat even with an open door (and possibly too much @ 1C compared with the low power segment of P2 when doing low quantities)?

[fruity]

Need some Behmor help.

I've run P2 & P3 back-to-back on the same bean with varying results.

To me it seems like some beans work better with the faster heat up on the P2 (Brazilians, for example), while others prefer a slower heat curve (many African varieties). You do need to wary of the faster 1C > 2C transition if you're switching from P2 to P3.

So I wouldn't say one is better than the other. It still comes back to experimenting and finding what profile works best with the beans you have.

[Rumo]

Thanks fruity, a related question here if anyone can help - has anyone had systematic issues with tipping when roasting on the Behmor and how did you address them?

[fruity]

Need some Behmor help.

I've had tipping on one bean with P2; solved by switching to P3. Sometimes a slower heat up helps minimise tipping.

[Divey]

just to add another set of ideas for when you're more used to the behmor

almost every roast I now do is 280gm, 1lb setting, P4 or P5 and time setting D

just on first crack I usually prop the door open a tiny bit with a wooden brush (about a 1cm gap), or open it to the first 'stop' (about 4 cm) and let it get to the start of second crack, I find the door open creates just a bit more gap between first and second for me, when I cool the beans I normally have about a minute left on the timer

not a bad roast for the last few months

That's pretty much what I've settled on other than a tad more on weight with 300 grams and I adjust the timer for 3 minutes to the end. I let it do it's own thing after that.