Behmor max temps

[stevenc]

After reading through dozens of posts I'm still unsure about the max temps I should be expecting in my Behmor 1600 plus. I've happily done over 100 roasts over the past few years, with (usually) great results, at least to my taste.

But having recently added HeatSnob unit and using the new features of the Behmor plus panel (A and B temps), I'm wondering if I could be doing things better. I know that the results in the cup are much important than a roast graph but it has me wondering...

In particular, I always seem to be hitting 1C at around the 145C mark. From that point ETs don't rise much at all and 2C is usually at the same or only 1 or 2 degrees higher. This has been consistent on over more than 20 roasts of Ethiopian Gambella using a 400 g load on P3, D settings. I tend to preheat to around 100 C before loading.

I've noticed lots of roasters in the forums using Behmors reporting steep temp rises to over 200C.

There is no way that my Behmor will reach 200C unless I am missing some trick. The few times that I have tried a faster temp rise with a P1 manual setting it has auto shutdown to cooling cycle at around 170C.

I'm also interested in those steep temp drops that people post on cooling, with temps dropping from 200C to 20C in a minute or 2. In my Behmor, with cooling cycle and door open, it takes the full 13 minutes of cooling for the temp to go from 140 back to 25 C or thereabouts.

The temp logs are a great but for me they are raising more questions than answers. Perhaps I can get some here.

Thanks,

StevenC

[Agrajag]

The temp you're measuring with the heatsnob is environment temperature, not bean temp. Have a look at the image of the profile attached to this post http://coffeesnobs.com.au/home-roast...tml#post568241 - the pink line is ET while dark green is BT. You'll see the BT keeps rising where ET levels off.

[Agrajag]

I'm also interested in those steep temp drops that people post on cooling, with temps dropping from 200C to 20C in a minute or 2.

I get this by opening the door, taking the chaff tray out (careful, extremely hot) and blast a fan in.

[nzgreenbean]

Hello Steven,

I’ve been using a Behmor for about five years with reasonable results. Andlike you I’ve not seen incredibly high temperatures. Not 200. When I first gotmachine I did query this with Behmor butthe answer is the power feed to your house. Which I can tell you here there isabsolutely no problem.
I’m into HiFi and have a voltage monitor across my mains it’svery steady here at 238 V and I plug my Behmor short heavy grade electrical cable back to themains board. There is no loss there. I am very confident I get maximum Voltsand amperage.
One thing I do know if you lessen the amount of copy beansin your roaster this will bring up the heat significantly. I’ve worked out formyself and optimal amount of green beans in the roaster is 220 g. I roast inmanual mode bringing the beans up to 1^st crack as quickly aspossible and then controlling the heat from the using the other buttons todecrease the heat at any given point as I see how the beans are progressing allthe time that they have been in the Behmor.
I have been a little naughty and have been doing this for along time now and it is been working well for me and that is when I’m satisfiedwith the roaster that I’ve had cooling after which a few seconds pass I stopthe machine quickly grabbed the tumbler containing the beans and remove it fromthe Behmor after which I turn the callingcycle back on in the Behmor . I’m then quickly exiting the house with the beansand hands (picture me wearing some very sturdy gloves so I don’t burn myself) I’moutside now with ambient temperatures around about 20° or less at this time ayear 17° and I start shaking the tumbler. Benefits I found you slow the roastdown quickly and remove more of the husk from the beans. You have to really setyourself up well and ensure you can do this safely. It’s not a recommendedapproach by Behmor and they would advise against it.. but that’s what I do here.Sure there is a concern about decreasing Behmor life expectancy but I’m fairly confident itwon’t drastically shorten its life as I’ve already been doing for at least ayear now.
With 220 - 300 g of beans I would reach first crack in about9 ½ to 10 minutes SHB beans taking longer. If I’m using SHB I will lighten the beanload to 220 g.
If you do a cleaning cycle look at the temperatures that youwill get there and they’re starting to get right up there for me the highest I’veseen is 180°C so that’s what taught me that it was how much green matter is inyour Behmor
also when you’re in manual mode it is P5 that is giving youthe full element heat. So you would start off doing your usual roast hitting astart button then I would hurt P5 to bring the elements to maximum heat output.P4 being 75 and P3 being 50% heat output I’ve not used anything less.
For myself I never experienced any real joy using theprofiles so I found my way to using manual mode. And I think it’s all becauseyou’ve got to get that balance of the right amount of beans in your Behmor to beable to use the profiles at any given weight. But they’re not all beans are thesame. So I found it easier to use manual mode.
The more beans you use in your Behmor thetrick here it is to control where you want the beans to slow down and to stoproasting.
I would be really interested also to hear those getting 200°Ctemperatures and being able to drop the Behmor to 20°C within a minute - the little fanin the Behmor Hmm It would be most interesting to hear how that isachieved.
The only time I’ve had my machine shut down was not givingthe Behmor enough time to rest after a roast and thendoing another. Anyway I find the Behmor tooperate better with less beans. HoweverI’m surprised that 145°C is where youreach first crack whilst not a great deal more in my Behmor itwould be nothing less than 154 -160 most of my roasting is taking place at 160degrees C
also there is something else I noticed compared to you, I cannot preheat my Behmor to 100° C same as you, if I let my Behmor get to anything like 75°C it would fail to start I would have to wait for it to cool. I use to pre-heathowever using less coffee beans that’s a practice I’ve stopped doing.

[nzgreenbean]

Hello Agrajag,

I've not seen the HeatSnob unit can you point me to information looks really interesting

Thanks
John

[Agrajag]

I've not seen the HeatSnob unit can you point me to information looks really interesting

Available here: CoffeeSnobs - BeanBay - Other Stuff - HeatSnob Temperature Data Logger

More info here: http://coffeesnobs.com.au/home-roast...-software.html

By the way the beans certainly would be getting > 200°C in the behmor otherwise you wouldn't be roasting your beans. The temps you're seeing are lower because of where they are being measured.

[LeroyC]

After reading through dozens of posts I'm still unsure about the max temps I should be expecting in my Behmor 1600 plus. I've happily done over 100 roasts over the past few years, with (usually) great results, at least to my taste.

But having recently added HeatSnob unit and using the new features of the Behmor plus panel (A and B temps), I'm wondering if I could be doing things better. I know that the results in the cup are much important than a roast graph but it has me wondering...

In particular, I always seem to be hitting 1C at around the 145C mark. From that point ETs don't rise much at all and 2C is usually at the same or only 1 or 2 degrees higher. This has been consistent on over more than 20 roasts of Ethiopian Gambella using a 400 g load on P3, D settings. I tend to preheat to around 100 C before loading.

I've noticed lots of roasters in the forums using Behmors reporting steep temp rises to over 200C.

There is no way that my Behmor will reach 200C unless I am missing some trick. The few times that I have tried a faster temp rise with a P1 manual setting it has auto shutdown to cooling cycle at around 170C.

I'm also interested in those steep temp drops that people post on cooling, with temps dropping from 200C to 20C in a minute or 2. In my Behmor, with cooling cycle and door open, it takes the full 13 minutes of cooling for the temp to go from 140 back to 25 C or thereabouts.

The temp logs are a great but for me they are raising more questions than answers. Perhaps I can get some here.

Thanks,

StevenC

Just to clarify Steven - which temp readings are you referring to? 'B' readings on the Behmor? 'nzgreenbean' pretty much covered all variables in the two posts above and I use my Behmor similarly. For example I've got some Mexican SHBs at the moment and I've had to drop the quantity as the first attempt didn't get hot enough even on P1 auto and P5 manual after the fan started. Most of the time I'm roasting between 250 and 350g batches as I find this is sort of a sweet spot. 400g seems to be too much for all except some softer Brazilians or the like.

So the 140degC you mention must be the 'B' temp reading. Is that right? If so then you're right that it won't go much above 140. In fact it'll probably shut down if it went too much higher although I'm not sure exactly what level the safety shut off is set at. 'A' temp readings will go much higher later in the roast once the fan has been running for a few minutes. I don't use 'A' readings as they don't really seem of too much use to me as they're not a true environmental temp. So until I get myself a Heatsnob (hopefully soon) I just use 'B' readings to 'profile' a roast and make adjustments or repeat a successful roast. Max 'B' temps for me are usually around the 146degC mark.

And yeah there's no way you'll get fast cooling by leaving the drum in the machine. Within a minute or so of starting the cooling process I whip the tray and drum out, tip the beans into a colander and sit them on top of a fan to cool. I always make sure I hit cool on the Behmor again to let it go through the motions of a proper cooling cycle, but I don't bother putting the drum or tray back in. I reckon I'm getting better results in the cup since I started doing this.

[moreCoffee]

Can't speak for the new heatsnobs, but here's an example of the temp readings I get using a pair of the older Victor DMM's.
Eth. Harrar, 180g charge, P3B, with manual override to 75% power at 11:45, and 25% power at 13:30. Door open on cool + fan.
Red = internal, Blue = exhaust.


This post shows you where I've mounted the bead probes.
http://coffeesnobs.com.au/home-roast...tml#post565133

[stevenc]

Thanks Agrajag,

I understand the BT keeps rising while the ET falls off. What I'm curious about is that others, like this example, are reaching much higher ET than me. This example shows ET at around 170C. My Behmor throws to the cooling cycle with Err2 at an ET of 165C or thereabouts.

I am measuring ET with heat snob unit placed according to the classic CS template. For the record, it measures pretty much exactly the same as the Bemhor B thermistor readings.

Or are the >200C temps I have been seeing in other posts BT, instead of ET? I thought I was comparing apples with apples but maybe I've misread the data.

Cheers,

Steven

[stevenc]

Thanks NZgreenbean,

I will try smaller batches and see if this helps. Although even with an empty roaster on a clean cycle I'm not seeing ET reaching these high temps, using either the B thermistor or the heat snob probe.

Pretty sure my voltage is fine as I used to monitor it when we had some power issues. Is usually a solid 240 at the outlet.

Using the heat snob probe I do know that I can reach 95C in a preheat no problems. Not sure where the cutoff point is, but it's not time dependent as I would be well past the 1:45 'limit' in the manual.

Cheers,

Steven

[stevenc]

That's a decent temp plunge. Might try that technique. I know that the really steep temp drops are achieved by removing the beans to a cooling unit of some sort but then how are the temperatures being logged? Good to know you can improve a lot still in situ in the Behmor.

Thanks,

Steven

[stevenc]

Can't speak for the new heatsnobs, but here's an example of the temp readings I get using a pair of the older Victor DMM's.
Eth. Harrar, 180g charge, P3B, with manual override to 75% power at 11:45, and 25% power at 13:30. Door open on cool + fan.
Red = internal, Blue = exhaust.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]12509[/ATTACH]

This post shows you where I've mounted the bead probes.
http://coffeesnobs.com.au/home-roast...tml#post565133

I am using the classic CS HeatSnob probe placement which is the sames as your probe placement with the older DMM. So why are you getting ETs of 230C when I am never hitting higher than 170C without an Err2 shutdown.

Steven

[moreCoffee]

So why are you getting ETs of 230C when I am never hitting higher than 170C without an Err2 shutdown.

Steven

Dunno

What does your heatsnob/probe measure in boiling water?
Could try another probe or even a bead type?

I wouldn't get too hung up on the DMM temperatures as long as they're fairly consistent from roast to roast. If you are hitting first crack then your environment temperature is reaching 200C and beyond. For what it's worth my DMM readings look nothing like the built-in A/B readings on the Behmor display, which always seem to be much lower.

[artman]

The exhaust temp will be higher than internal chamber temp due to afterburner, that's my understanding.

I have done a couple of of roasts with bean temp and I also noted down the A and B temps (need to try and plot them back in to the profile). I will post these up once I figure out how.

The err2 seems to kick in at B temp of 166. Is that your experience?

Cheers

[artman]

Here it is.

Main temp is bean mass temp, measured with bead type sensor.

I manually added the A temp and B temp into the CSV (is there a way of inputting temps manually in the roast other than the air and heat sliders?)

A and B temps were logged every 30 seconds. B maxed out at 164 degrees C at 12m30s.

Ambient temp was 25.3, bean was Kenya AAA Bold, 411g green, resulted in 340g roasted.

Also is there a way of making the template colour again to enable export to JPG?

Cheers