Jmanespresso Senior Member Joined: 18 Jan 2009 Posts: 2,108 Location: Westchester NY Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Alex Duetto II Grinder: Compak K10 - Vario Vac Pot: Yama-SY5/SY8/TCA5 Drip: V60, Beehouse, CCD Roaster: Hottop B
Posted Wed Mar 31, 2010, 10:36am Subject: Re: Hottop v. Behmor
Well said.
Too Major selling points for me, for the Hottop KN8828-B. Direct, and Constant Temperature Control, and On-Board, Fast Cooling. The other major point.. The ease of getting a Bean Mass Temperature Probe into the roaster.
Those are three very crucial things, none of which are doable on the Behmor. If you really want to roast coffees to their best potential, you need that stuff. At the very least, full temp control.
For the money, the Behmor is good. $300 isn't too hard to swallow, and if your patient, you can get some good roasts. But, what really turned me off of the Behmor, was how you have to "trick" the roaster, and work around it. Almost everyone tells the roaster they're using more beans then they are, opening the door for X minutes, running test batches to guess where the cracks will be to figure out batch size for the next roast...
I wanted the ability to buy a coffee, and control the roast to the ideal profile, for that coffee. Add a bean temp probe(and an ET probe if you wish), and you have the info, and the control you need, to fully profile a roast. The only thing holding you back, is YOU.
This morning, I had 4 double shots, of coffee that I roasted myself, in the Hottop. They were fabulous! It was the first time I enjoyed home roasted espresso, in over 8months. And the roast profile, was pretty simple.... more of a test run then a real roasting session. Today I am adding my Bean Temp/ET temp probes, to transform the already awesome HottopB, into the single best roaster under $1k.
I love my Hottop. Im drinking the best coffee I have ever roasted, and the espresso is darn good too. It will only get better from here!
Follow Your Bliss
Coffee makes your constantly overcome your prejudices and re-evaluate your own "received wisdoms" when it comes to judging cup flavors. -Tom Owen, SweetMarias
lsjms Senior Member Joined: 19 Aug 2009 Posts: 49 Location: Uk
Espresso: Pid Quickmill 0820, Achille Grinder: Super Jolly Roaster: Hottop(Manual)
Posted Wed Mar 31, 2010, 10:51am Subject: Re: Hottop v. Behmor
Folk seem very happy with the Behmor, it is a solid price, I think the hottop would be significantly costlier to build though.
I think the dump and cool facility on the hottop combined with the fact you can charge the roaster when you see fit should not be undervalued. For me this is control and I would not swap these features for all the profile options in the world.
Jmanespresso Senior Member Joined: 18 Jan 2009 Posts: 2,108 Location: Westchester NY Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Alex Duetto II Grinder: Compak K10 - Vario Vac Pot: Yama-SY5/SY8/TCA5 Drip: V60, Beehouse, CCD Roaster: Hottop B
Posted Wed Mar 31, 2010, 2:44pm Subject: Re: Hottop v. Behmor
Yeah thats another awesome thing about the Hottop. Drop the beans into the drum whenever you like. Definitely makes a big difference depending on the bean.
Follow Your Bliss
Coffee makes your constantly overcome your prejudices and re-evaluate your own "received wisdoms" when it comes to judging cup flavors. -Tom Owen, SweetMarias
Interesting discussion guys. The Behmor only landed down here in Australia around the end of 2009 but it's certainly made some waves. Joe is to be commended for getting it to market at the price he has.
My previous weapon of choice has been a Hottop B and I've had the opportunity to do a few Behmor roasts by way of comparison. I tried 250g roasts to roughly mimic what I do in the Hottop.
Unfortunately I can't say it's done anything to sway my allegiance to the Hottop. Firstly for a 250g roast (1/2lb) on P2 (which is the ONLY profile which provided less than 100% power, and thus a slowing of the roast, near the end of the program), the longest you can get is about 14:30. That to me is too fast, the beans are heating too quickly, the roast is both bright and has a burnt smell to it both in the bag, off the doser in the grinder when grinding, and in the cup. I've not tried a 1lb roast yet but the times look a lot better. It seems very odd to me that if you find you like a 1lb roast which took say 19 minutes, that you can't repeat the same roast profile but for a smaller batch.
Cooling has already been mentioned and I dislike it in the Behmor almost as much as the Gene Cafe, though at least in the Behmor you *can* open the door. When I'm finished with a roast I want to be able to stop it then and there, not guess about how much longer it may roast inside the chamber and guess when SC is about to start.
I don't know I can see three times the price in a Hottop, but what I can see is the difference in results it gives. The Hottop allows me to roast the way I want; the Behmor squeezes me into its mold and tells me how it think I should roast - even if I know better.
There's no denying the value of the Behmor and I reckon it's a far better starting point than an i-Roast, but for me it wouldn't be the end of my roasting journey. The Behmor will probably stay in a box somewhere for occasional large batch duties, but I can't see any good reason to keep using it as the results are simply inferior to what the Hottop can produce.
Interesting. Are you guys on 110V or 220V power down there in upside-down land? It seems that the main complaint from US users is just the opposite - unable to get roasts to progress fast enough. That has certainly been my experience. I wonder if the 220V model for other markets will work here on our 60hz AC if wired at 220?
Interesting. Are you guys on 110V or 220V power down there in upside-down land? It seems that the main complaint from US users is just the opposite - unable to get roasts to progress fast enough. That has certainly been my experience...
With the "B" model? Try roasting less bean mass- say 225, or if you are brave, 200 grams or so. Drop them in at an indicated 250 F. With judicious use of the fan and keeping the heating element at 100% should give you a sufficiently fast roast, if that is to your taste. But be aware that using less than 225 grams will require even closer attention than normal as things can progress quite quickly once first crack ends.
Interesting. Are you guys on 110V or 220V power down there in upside-down land? It seems that the main complaint from US users is just the opposite - unable to get roasts to progress fast enough. That has certainly been my experience. I wonder if the 220V model for other markets will work here on our 60hz AC if wired at 220?
We're running 240v, and given the problem you've reported I think that would make you guys the ones who need to turn things upside-down! :). Come shift down-under - beautiful climate, sandy beaches, safe streets (unless you're in Melbourne ;)) and a beefy mains power supply that lets you get things done!
I got the Hottop back out last night, ah it was bliss! :) The roast didn't quite go to plan but it just underlined why the Hottop is such a good roaster. I had to leave the roaster for a couple of minutes around the time I'd normally drop the power a bit, so I actually hit FC in just under 10 minutes instead of the target 13 minutes! And this is where the Hottop came into its own. In the Behmor it would have been game over and me condemned to an ultra-quick roast with ashy overtones. But the Hottop allowed me to salvage the roast - I pulled the power straight down to 50% and then to 40% by about 12 minutes around the end of FC - at this stage the bean mass probe was reading 183C, temps were increasing by about 7C/min and SC normally comes at 200C so I only had a couple of minutes to run if I was in the Behmor. But by having the Hottop's control to choose exactly 40% power in this case, rather than 50% or 30%, I quickly hauled in the temperature rise to 2C/min. In the end SC came at 199.5C at about 18:30, and when I'd heard enough of SC I ejected and magically SC stopped - WHEN I wanted it to, not 60 seconds later as it would in the Behmor (or the Gene Cafe for that matter).
So I ended up with a roast about 20 seconds into SC which had about 7 minutes between FC and SC. Even though it's a slightly darker roast than the Behmor roast of the same bean (Indian Tiger Mountain A), the Hottop roast has none of the wildfire notes because I was able to remove heat when I needed to.
With the "B" model? Try roasting less bean mass- say 225, or if you are brave, 200 grams or so. Drop them in at an indicated 250 F. With judicious use of the fan and keeping the heating element at 100% should give you a sufficiently fast roast, if that is to your taste. But be aware that using less than 225 grams will require even closer attention than normal as things can progress quite quickly once first crack ends.
gucciago Senior Member Joined: 6 Apr 2004 Posts: 79 Location: Palm Beach,FL Expertise: Pro Roaster
Espresso: 07 La Marzocco Linea 3EE/... Grinder: MAZZER Major with DOSER Vac Pot: N/A Drip: N/A Roaster: Custom Gas Drum Roaster/PID...
Posted Tue Jun 19, 2012, 1:23pm Subject: Re: Hottop v. Behmor
Not to mention you'd have a 3lb roaster with redundancy for same price as 8 oz roaster...lol ( This was quoted from an earlier post saying hot top $900 behmor $300...)
germantownrob Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2007 Posts: 2,041 Location: Philadelphia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Duetto 3, A Dead Oscar Grinder: Vario-W, Preciso w/Esatto,... Drip: Brazen Roaster: Diedrich IR-1, HT B
Posted Tue Jun 19, 2012, 6:04pm Subject: Re: Hottop v. Behmor
gucciago Said:
Not to mention you'd have a 3lb roaster with redundancy for same price as 8 oz roaster...lol ( This was quoted from an earlier post saying hot top $900 behmor $300...)
Posted Wed Jun 20, 2012, 8:34am Subject: Re: Hottop v. Behmor
Interesting, indeed.. Should I get the Geo Metro or the BMW 530? Sat down and talked to Joe in Portland at the show and we talked a bit, and at one point we compared the Hottop to the Behmor. Two different machines aimed at two different markets. Asking which is best is pointless unless you base the comparison on some specific criteria. Cost? Capacity? Control? What have you...
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