Basement Roasting Shrine

I've been roasting in my basement for quite a while now- I had rigged up a 4" dryer duct and vent to direct most of the smoke and fumes from my iRoast2 out a nearby window. Here is the original set up before the Behmor came:

Once the Behmor arrived I knew I needed to find a different ventilation solution since the smoke doesn't just come out of one convenient opening like with the IR2.

The range hood in my kitchen is the kind that just shoots the air back into the room, so roasting under it was out of the question. I decided to swing into the Sears Outlet near my house to see if I could find a good deal on a range hood for the basement.

I was able to score a 36" hood with a 200 CFM rating that had all of its parts intact for $38. It is in rough shape cosmetically, but since it's in the basement I could care less. I found a 3.25 X 10" to 4" reducer and did a little creative engineering to hook the hood up to my existing dryer duct.
Here's a close up showing the reason it was for sale at the scratch & dent outlet:

The results are great. With the quietness of the Behmor along with the excellent ventilation, I can now roast a batch of coffee without anyone in the house even noticing.

Behmor 1600 Inital Thoughts

Up until now my only roasting experience has been with my Hearthware iRoast2, which I've had for a little over a year now. The IR2 has served me well, but the small batch sizes and noise were beginning to be a PITA. I've been following the hype about the new Behmor 1600 roaster and decided to give one a try.

I've run through about 10 roasts so far and wanted to briefly post some initial thoughts.

What I like

• Silence - The Behmor is incredibly quiet. Coming from the iRoast2, I can't stress enough how much of an improvement this is. I had never really heard the sounds of C1 & C2 until my first batch with the Behmor. The ability to hear what's going on will lead to better repeatability.
  
• Back to back roasting - I like the ability to roast multiple batches back to back. This allows me to do longer roasting sessions less often.
• Batch size - The flexibility to roast a range of batch sizes is one of the biggest selling points for me.
• Price - At $299 with 8 pounds of green coffee from Sweet Marias, it's a great deal. I think the Hottop roaster is probably better in many ways (temp control and cooling speed), but at more the double the price, it's hard to justify.
  

What I don't like:

• Cooling - I don't have temp readings to back this up, but it does seems to take a really long time to get the beans cool. You can open the door during the cooling cycle (which I think is a must), but you'll end up with chaff flying everywhere.
  
• Limited control - No ability to change power settings on the fly. The roaster allows a decent amount of control before you start the roasting cycle, but once you start there's not much that can be down to react to changes. I will probably try using the Variac to bring in some on-the-fly tweaking.
  
• Lack of thermometry - It would be nice if there was a way to have some idea about the temps inside the roaster. However, the lack of control during the roast kind of makes it less important. Any kind of temp reading from inside the roaster would be helpful mainly for logging and repeatability.
  
• Poor visibility - The unit does have an on-board light, but it's still difficult to really see what the beans are looking like. Apparently the chaff collector can be modified to improve visibility, but I think I can do without making this mod. I have found myself paying more attention to the sounds and smells, and also relying on my roasting logs to predict the onset of C2.
  

So, How's The Coffee?

My first few batches using the P3 or P4 profiles, which deliver a slow ramp up to full power, were all pretty disappointing. The aroma was "missing" or weak, and the flavor was flat and uninteresting. I suspect the slow ramp up is stretching out the time to reach C1 too much and possibly baking the coffee.

Lately I've been using P1 (full power) and P2 (s-curve) and have found the coffee to be much better. P2 shows the most potential if you have good data to predict when C1 will start for a given coffee. The trick is to have the lower power stage kick in just as C1 gets going. The roaster reduces power to 70% in the second stage for a few minutes, then kicks back up to 100% to finish it off.

Bottom Line
Even though the results haven't blown me away yet, I can definitely see potential in this roaster. I think the keys are avoiding the P3, P4, and P5 profiles and sticking P1 or P2 - watching, listening and smelling carefully to know when to stop the roast.