I did home roasting for a while w/ a little home roasting machine (Hearthstone or the like). Gave it up b/c I couldn't get any consistency: a great roast would be followed by a mediocre one.

Then I saw Joe Behm at CoffeeCon in Brooklyn, NY a few weeks ago and was very taken by his machine. However, a friend recommends the Nesco. My budget is < $400 and my focus is espresso almost entirely. Would appreciate people's thoughts on the Behmor vs. the Nesco.

No doubt good advice, but don't think it would work for me. I'm not a guy who mods machines - I can see you very much are, going by your FrankenBehmor. I just want 'em to work. Also, I am serious: it's worth ~300 to give it a good try.

The other thing I'm confused about is your statement about profiling: IIRC, Joe B. demoed profiling at CoffeeCon.

Modding a popcorn popper is dead simple. Even a consumer roaster will need basic handy skills to clean it. We all start off as non modders in life and a few experiences build confidence.

Profiling - the difference would be having Artisan graph temperature in near real time so you can adjust fan and power to get the ET and BT curves you want in the times you want.

A Good reason to start with a popper and mod it is you might very quickly outgrow a low end consumer machine. In retrospect I am happy I went through a couple cheap poppers because 18 months later I had built up confidence and interest and I was ready for a Quest M3 which is 3-4x your budget.

Neither will give you a good solid espresso roast.

If you are after a city or city + no problem and both would be an excellent choice.

jeffg2020 wrote:The other thing I'm confused about is your statement about profiling: IIRC, Joe B. demoed profiling at CoffeeCon.

IIRC, neither the Behmor nor the Nesco has a sensor for bean mass temperature. While knowing the 'bean temp' isn't necessary to profile, the 'bean temp' is what most use when profiling.

A used Hottop was just sold for $250. [SOLD] Hottop B-2K Coffee Roaster

Mark [creative nickname] is selling his modified Popcorn popper for $50 + shipping now. [FS] Starter roasting gear
The batch size is small (50-60g), but this modified popper should give you some profiling capability.

turtle wrote:Neither will give you a good solid espresso roast.

If you are after a city or city + no problem and both would be an excellent choice.

You don't feel you can get full city from a Behmor?

The Behmor can produce great roasts for brewed coffee and espresso, and has placed well in home roaster competitions with entries from Cammie (RIP), myself, and others, but it doesn't have a bean temperature probe, does better with less than a full rated load (but what roaster doesn't) and results can vary depending on your conditions including voltage available to the roaster under load.

It may not be the roaster to buy if you want to dive deep into roasting profiles or use it as a stepping stone to go pro, but if you want an easy way to roast coffee for home consumption at an affordable price, it has a lot to offer.

My goal is to make small batches for home espresso, i.e. about 2 doubles per day. I also have limited counter space, due to several other gadgets (ice cream maker, etc). So the Behmor seems like it might be a good "starter machine," in that it can actually produce good roasts w/ some consistency. At most I would move up to a more serious home machine: I'll leave pro roasting to the pros.