Lately my Gene Cafe roaster had been prematurely cycling temperature before the dialed in set point. For instance I set the temperature for 464 deg. and noticed the heater turning off at 456, then 452, then 455. Uh-oh! I thought. It's 11-1/2 months old so I need to get to the bottom of it before the end of the first year of warranty runs out. I called Fresh Beans, Inc - I guess the No. American distributor - and talked to a really helpful person. I describe the problem and he stated that it's probably an air flow issue where the volume of air is reduced and the heater is getting too hot and cutting off. He mentioned the air intake is on the bottom of the unit and keep it cleared. I looked and then vacuumed the bottom screen but no help. Fresh Beans also said to run the Gene Cafe roaster without the chaff collector (small in my case) and see if I can make temperature. I said what the hell so instead of running with no chaff collector I took the collector apart to give a thorough cleaning. The screen seamed clean enough but wait a minute there are actually two screens on the chaff collector - an inner and outer. Removed the inner screen and found the culprit. A very fine, oily chaff residue had worked its way in the middle of the two screens and built up. It was really clogged. Cleaned all of this out, reassembled the chaff collector, and the Gene Cafe works like new! Cleaning will be on my list of periodic maintenance in the future. Thank you Fresh Beans! Scott
I haven't really had any problems yet and I have gone through 200 lb of coffee beans with it. From spring to fall I roast outdoors with no chaff collector. In the winter I roast in the garage with ambient temp of 40 or more. Here I use the chaff collector and a window fan to get rid of the smoke. I clean the chaff collector by shaking out the chaff every second batch. I also clean the chaff collector by completely disassembling it. That works well.
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