Posted Sun Mar 6, 2011, 11:26am Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
My wish would be for a drum with an even finer mesh for roasting Yemen. I don't know if that's practical or if it would impede air flow too much. I find a lot of small beans in the chaff tray and quite a few half burnt beans stuck in the drum mesh.
I did get the fine mesh drum which I just use for everything. The stock drum is gathering dust.
It's possible that I need to consider another way of roasting for Yemen. While I would like more control over the roast, I think that's not what the Behmor is about. I can only do 12 ounce batches and be sure I can get to Full City+. I live with the compromises because the Behmor is pretty convenient. Just load it up, set max time and then babysit the roast. It's a lot less work than waving a heat gun around.
Posted Sun Mar 6, 2011, 3:38pm Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
jliedeka Said:
My wish would be for a drum with an even finer mesh for roasting Yemen. I don't know if that's practical or if it would impede air flow too much. I find a lot of small beans in the chaff tray and quite a few half burnt beans stuck in the drum mesh.
Jim, I'm sure you do this too: When I load the beans I shake them over the sink (in the drum) while rotating it by hand, to sift out the small and broken beans. That way they don't land in the chaff tray (or on the floor).
Posted Sun Mar 6, 2011, 7:36pm Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
JKalpin Said:
Jim, I'm sure you do this too: When I load the beans I shake them over the sink (in the drum) while rotating it by hand, to sift out the small and broken beans. That way they don't land in the chaff tray (or on the floor).
There is an easier way that someone else (BoldJava?) mentioned here. Load the drum with the beans, insert the chaff tray, then press COOL.
This spins the drum a little faster, and any small beans will drop out of the drum. After three minutes, press OFF, then unload the roaster and dump out all the small beans in the chaff tray and on the floor of the Behmor.
Life is too short to drink bad wine (or bad coffee)
Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011, 5:41am Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
rgrosz Said:
There is an easier way that someone else (BoldJava?) mentioned here. Load the drum with the beans, insert the chaff tray, then press COOL.
This spins the drum a little faster, and any small beans will drop out of the drum. After three minutes, press OFF, then unload the roaster and dump out all the small beans in the chaff tray and on the floor of the Behmor.
That's a neat trick. Just learned it a couple of weeks ago, but only need to do it on Ethiopia coffee. For some reason, those seem to have the smallest beans (of the sampler I've tried) and several "half-beans" which aren't peaberry - they are almost curved and oversized, grain-of-wheat shaped beans. They are most definitely beans, they expand and smell like coffee after they drop into the chaff tray.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011, 6:08am Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
I've begun to use my thermocouple and door opening to control my roasts with very good success.
I get the roast to 1C (on P1), then control the temperature to 398 to 410º by opening/closing the Behmor door (open when the temp gets to 410, close when thermocouple hits 398) - I estimate this is probably equivalent to P2, except I get to determine exactly when to pull back the power. It gives me "within seconds" control of the power drop at 1C, rather than trying to predict to the nearest 10 seconds for 1C for a particular bean, batch size, and with the other minor variables that can change 1C by a few seconds +/-.
It would be better to be able to hit 50%, 70%, 85% or 100% power at will. Maybe even 0% to allow a little bit of "coast roast" prior to cooling (which would turn off the element, but keep the afterburner if already on, and the drum spinning).
Keep in mind that this would nearly eliminate the need for P2, P3, P4 and P5. If you have a bean that needs "drying", then you can basically do 100% to get the temp up, then at 250ºF you can drop to 50% for 1 minute, then 85% for 1 minute, then back up to 100%... until 1C.
It would be for "serious hobby roasters", true, but eliminating the A, B, C, D, 1/4, 1/2, 1lb, and P1, P2, P3, P4, P5 buttons you would have:
0% 50% 70% 85% 100%
Start light off Cool
Instructions are simple: All roasts end at 23 minutes. Roasts that take longer than 18 minutes are basically baked, anyway. DO NOT LEAVE THE ROASTER UNATTENDED Timer is "countup" A printed sheet example is provided if you want to record notes (every 5 seconds) Pressing "start" the roast begins at 100% power. If you press any of the power buttons during the roast, the roaster will change the element power settings to that power output at that time It is your responsibility to end the roast at appropriate time by pressing "cool"
Provide a few examples in the instructions.
Example: Colombia City+ to Full City Load 12 oz beans, Press "start" Listen for 1st crack. (Approx 10 min) At sound of 1st crack, press 50% near the end of 1st crack, press 70% (approx 12 min to 12min 30 sec) Cool the roast approximately 15 seconds after the last sounds of 1C. (approx 12min 45 seconds) To take this roast to FC+, press 100% at last sounds of 1C, then 0% at first sound of second crack, and cool 10 seconds later. (approx 13min 40 seconds)
Also, let the customer know the safety systems built in: -auto cool if rapid temperature increase noted -if temp exceeds XXXºF (500?) the roaster auto cools -Roaster will not start if temperature is >XXXºF (I think this is around 260ºF)
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011, 1:16pm Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
I do rotate the drum to get rid of debris and some of the smaller beans but I don't get all of them. Plus, with Yemen, I lose a significant proportion of the batch to beans that are too small for the mesh. As Yemen coffes are among the most expensive origins I buy, I really don't like losing 5% or whatever.
Posted Sat Sep 3, 2011, 8:16am Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
Interesting thing, spurred on by Jerry's difficulties with the El Salvador Manzano roasting "Troublesome Beans"
The thing I have noticed recently is that this hot weather really messes with the Behmor roasting profile. It will enter periods where the element turns off for a bit (assuming that the nanny controls are trying to keep the thermocouple in a certain range, or the hot weather causes too high a temperature rise that the Behmor is compensating for - insert big <shrug> here).
My roasts are much less consistent in warm weather, and I do monitor my line voltage regularly, along with the temperature profile. When I roast (usually in the evening), I have about 124-5 V, dropping to 121V when the afterburner and elements are on. I figured I had the Behmor mastered by spring, then this summer things started to get less consistent, even with what I consider excellent and consistent power.
Before anyone asks, I clean the thing religiously, dry burn every 5, scrub the inside every 10, removing all traces of combustion, etc.
As an example, in the winter on 1lb-B-P1, the afterburner pops on right around 7:30 into the roast, including a slowdown of the drum motor. The temperature profile shows the appropriate bump from the extra portion of heating from the 600W afterburner kicking on.
However, when the ambient temperature is above 65°F (starting roast temperature), I get an element turn-off right around 7:00 into the roast, along with a speed up of the motor. This lasts until the afterburner lights, then the elements come back on and the roast continues. This tends to be around 370°F give or take, and usually results in a huge pause in the roasting temperature rise.
I understand the concept of the Behmor (an almost-automatic coffee roaster), but reality is this can't ever be the case. Different beans simply aren't consistent enough that you can classify them and have a one-profile-fits-all, even if you could classify the beans - (example: I've found low-grown brazil and hi-grown brazil roast as differently as a Kenya does from a Sumatra. Yet, both Brazils are technically "central American").
That's why I'd rather have a true manual control Behmor.
I thought of a way to ensure the user couldn't leave the behmor to become an inferno - a sort of neglect-switch logic. The user is required to update the burner setting every 30 seconds or less - or the thing automatically goes into cooling mode. All you need is a small countdown display - like a shot clock in a basketball game, or play clock (delay of game timer) in a football game. It gets reset every time the user inputs something - walk away for more than 30 seconds and you get an "end of roast" cooldown penalty.
No built-in profiles, no weights. Revising the Behmor control logic seems that it would make it much simpler:
The front panel would have the 30 second input timer in one corner. Main number display would be a COUNT UP timer starting at 00:00.
Status display lights for Roast, Cool, Afterburner. The power setting could be lit (each button) or displayed.
There would be a button for each of the power settings (0% 50% 70% 85% 100%), Start, Light, Off, Cool, and probably an afterburner button now that I think of it to control the afterburner function.
Pressing Start begins the roast at 100% power. Countdown timer begins, but resets every time an input is noted from the user (even if it's light on/off). This ensures there is at least someone at the controls within the last 30 seconds. I expect that this absolves much of the liability that the nanny controls are trying to mitigate.
Since the thermocouple temperature is being displayed, it would be no mystery if the the roasting temperature is exceeded.
Alerts would be nice:
Countdown input timer blinks at 10 seconds and below. Temperature display blinks at 475°F (knowing that it auto-cools if it exceeds 500° or 525°F) Count UP main timer blinks at 22:00 (knowing all roasts end at 23:00)
Please?
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Posted Tue Sep 6, 2011, 5:16am Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
JKalpin Said:
Jim, I'm sure you do this too: When I load the beans I shake them over the sink (in the drum) while rotating it by hand, to sift out the small and broken beans. That way they don't land in the chaff tray (or on the floor).
Posted Tue Sep 6, 2011, 5:57am Subject: Re: Next Gen Behmor 1600 Improvements, and other musings.
In regards to a re-designed Behmor that needs to have a button pushed every 30 seconds to be liability-proof, I might as well just do stovetop stockpot roasting then. Part of the appeal of the Behmor to me is that I can walk away for 10 minutes or so and do other things.
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