I'm currently using the Behmor roaster at home. It's main advantages are that it can be used indoors, runs on electric current, and is inexpensive as coffee roasters go. It makes a decent roast but falls far short of producing anything resembling a commercial roast. I am still puzzled as to why the controls seem to deliberately be designed to prevent the operator from not only easily tuning the typical roasting parameters but also to keep one from knowing the what is going on during the roast as well.

I was musing over the Hot Top Roaster, but then I saw the Coffee-Tech Roaster which is not too much more money. I wondered if there were any opinions about this out there as a decent home roaster.

drdna wrote:I was musing over the Hot Top Roaster, but then I saw the Coffee-Tech Roaster which is not too much more money.

The best HT, the Hottop-B, is ~$720, how much is this Coffee-Tech Solar?

drdna wrote:Behmor: Better Than Commercial Roasters?

They are north of USD 3,000 - I own the CT Solar (2kg batch capacity) and it was EUR 6,000.

Have you ever heard of the Quest M3 roaster? A stainless steel alternative to the the HT from Taiwan.
I have one on order, having paid USD 970,00 incl. shipping via EMS to Germany.

the_deal_maker wrote:Have you ever heard of the Quest M3 roaster? A stainless steel alternative to the the HT from Taiwan.I have one on order, having paid USD 970,00 incl. shipping via EMS to Germany.

Thanks for mentioning this, Malte. What else can you tell us about this one? I googled and got the following images:

Sorry, no more insights. But the quality should be really good. Will be able to tell more once the roaster has passed customs (this usually takes 3 x of the entire shipping time) and arrived at my house.

Batch capacity is 150 to 300gr, I intend to integrate a thermocouple and connect it to my Fluke.

It is very compact and has an integrated cooling system (last pic).

drdna wrote:I'm currently using the Behmor roaster at home. It's main advantages are that it can be used indoors, runs on electric current, and is inexpensive as coffee roasters go. It makes a decent roast but falls far short of producing anything resembling a commercial roast. I am still puzzled as to why the controls seem to deliberately be designed to prevent the operator from not only easily tuning the typical roasting parameters but also to keep one from knowing the what is going on during the roast as well.

I was musing over the Hot Top Roaster, but then I saw the Coffee-Tech Roaster which is not too much more money. I wondered if there were any opinions about this out there as a decent home roaster.

Why don't you PID it and then you'll be able to have full control over the roast?

drdna wrote:I am still puzzled as to why the controls seem to deliberately be designed to prevent the operator from not only easily tuning the typical roasting parameters but also to keep one from knowing the what is going on during the roast as well.

I wrote http://extrasensory.com/BehmorThing.htm to answer this question for me and put it up for all to use. It should give you a much better idea of how the controls work long with a lot of other features.

And for the non-Behmor users I even allow turning all the weird stuff off so it can be used as a tool for tracking greens and roast history including temperature profiles if you have a thermometer on the beans want to log that.

Ira

The link for BehmorThing is good, though I cannot use it with my OS. It begs the question as to why the Behmor was NOT designed with simple straightforward controls in the first place, though. I mean, really, if you need to write a computer program to figure out what sequence of buttons to push on your coffee roaster to adjust the parameters, there may be something wrong with the design.

Also, the essence of my original question was to compare professional roasters that run $5,000 and up to the home roasting machines and to ask those with more experience than myself:
Where is the gap that justifies the price jump? Or to put it another way, what weaknesses in home roasters can be addressed to bridge the gap? For example: if a unit like the Behmor could be given perfect controls, what issues would still keep it from being the equal of a commercial roasting machine?

drdna wrote: ... my original question was to compare professional roasters that run $5,000 and up to the home roasting machines ... Where is the gap that justifies the price jump? ... what weaknesses in home roasters can be addressed to bridge the gap? ... if a unit like the Behmor could be given perfect controls, what issues would still keep it from being the equal of a commercial roasting machine?

There's two sorts of roasters sized to close to amateur requirements: sample roasters and cafe roasters

Probat sells a 150 gram sample roaster for about $4000. It does less beans than the Behmor. It has no instrumentation at all apart from a gas valve and pressure gauge, a tryer for looking at the beans, and a place where you can stick a thermometer of your own choosing. This roaster, ganged together in sets of 1 to 4 drums, is the industry standard sample roaster. As I reported, Green Mountain uses these no-tech sample roasters to determine what profiles to use on their multi-million dollar roasters which have very high tech control systems. So why the high price?

Three reasons: first, it works now and for the next fifty years, day in day out, for dozens of roasts a day if needed. Second, if you know how to use it, you can roast batches in 6 minutes, 20 minutes or anything in between, third, it's made in small quantities. What is not a reason is fancy controls, since the roasters do that for themselves.

Cafe roasters like the little Diedriech's, or lots of commercial air roasters, have to reliably roast around 20 pounds per day, look cute, and be workable by the same PBTCs who pull the espressos. They are not built as well as sample roasters, and there is no aftermarket for them, but they fall in a similar price range

I don't believe they roast coffee any better than the Behmor or other home roasting equipment. First off, alt.coffee, CG and HB get a few posts each year of people becoming the proud owners of these contraptions, announcing how great their roasts will be, and never being heard from again. Second, they are designed to be operated by people far less skilled and motivated than home roasters. So I think these are the roasting equivalent of a coin operated coffee dispenser: commercial, yes; good, no.

It helps to know what is important in the roast profile. Firstly we are talking about the transfer of heat: how much, how quickly, and how evenly. No question that a larger commercial system will behave differently, but my hunch is that the sample roasters will not be a lot different from the Behmor for small batch sizes.

And does this mean I have to replace the barbecue out back with a Probat?