I own a gene cafe coffee roaster and I've always had trouble getting even roasts. I generally roast around 230g of coffee per batch. The coffee tends to taste a little dull, and I've noticed that the beens are uneven. I roast a wide variety of beens from African to Central American although I tend to gravitate to the fruitiness of Ethiopian coffees. I prefer to roast on the light to medium side of the spectrum, somewhere around city+ (at least that's my goal lol). My friend is suggesting to lower the batch size further, but I would like to know if there is an optimal batch size with people experienced with this roaster. I don't want to lower it to the point where the roaster won't perform properly. Following is the two profiles I generally use.

Profile 1:
10 minute roaster warmup at 350 degrees before beens
482 degrees until start of first crack
456 degrees to extend first crack

With the above profile I'm hitting first crack in around 9 minutes and roast an additional 2:00-2:30 to develop roast. Some of the beens go way too dark while others are spot on. If I back off a little on the development time some beens haven't experienced first crack while others look good. Overall taste seems baked either way.

Profile 2:
10 minute roaster warmup at 350 before beens
462 degrees until first crack
452 to extend first crack

I haven't timed the 2nd profile because it's relatively new to me. Roast comes out a little more even but the taste seems to be dull.

As you can imagine either scenario leaves me frustrated. I would greatly appreciate everyone's advice to get more consistent results.

8 years on the Gene. I always do 230g.

Keep your thermostat at the initial setting one minute INTO the first roast. Unlike a drum roaster, a Gene's beans do not go exothermic until you are a full minute into first crack. You are dropping your heat right at the point it needs continued heat. It does not have sufficient heat to go exothermic.

My profiles are here, in centigrade. Gene roast profiles?

Grab a Kill'AWatt and measure your voltage. I have found you need 119V to adequately roast on the Gene.

My voltage before I start is 123V, with the roaster running it drops to 120.1V. Hope that's adequate. I'm going to give my roaster a good cleaning as it seems my roasts were better when I first started roasting. The intake screen seems clear but I want to make certain dust isn't passing through to the motor.

ctilley79

I have had my Gene for about 8 years and tend to notice 2 things that cause inconsistent bean color
- age of heating element, as it gets older color becomes inconsistent
- buildup of dust on the blower/fan

The best way to clean the fan is to take the unit apart and pull the fan out. In some cases I have seen significant dust buildup on the blower(fan). Its a finicky task to open for cleaning the fan but I do that once a year as I think that has some impact on the heating element life

I have attached an image from

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... de=id.i167

Every 1.5 years or so the heater dies and I replace it.

I think I read your mind because I just got finished reassembling my roaster before reading this. I found absolutely zero dust on the motor or screen. I roast in my kitchen so my environment is virtually dust free. One thing I did do was remove the filter screen from unit. I've read on a few posts that this helped with airflow. I'm getting ready to roast a 200g batch to city+ (hopefully). I'll post back with results.

chuckcoffee wrote:
...

Every 1.5 years or so the heater dies and I replace it.

Same here. 3 heaters in 8 years. Silly part is up to $70 now.

http://www.batchcoffee.com/collections/ ... g-assembly

Does the element wire simply split in two? So I would know if there was something wrong with my heater correct?

ctilley79

Ok well that's funny. As I was writing the post I thought it would make sense to cutout the plastic grid and then have a screen on the outside to make it easy to clean. I'm interested in the results of removing the screen though. I roast outside so accumulation can occur but not consistently.

I typically roast about 250 grams to full city or less. Color is consistent. Element is about 2 years. I have a backup I bought from Batch coffee ready to go in case of failure. How old is your Gene and have you replaced the heating element?

Typically roasts start taking longer and then it just dies. Its localized heating and it burns out.

ctilley79 wrote:Does the element wire simply split in two? So I would know if there was something wrong with my heater correct?

If you are achieving 1st crack in 10 minutes, there is nothing wrong with your heater.

chuckcoffee wrote:How old is your Gene and have you replaced the heating element?

My roaster is about 2.5 years old with light use. I roast a couple times a month about a pound or two total. I didn't think of snipping some of the grates to allow more airflow. I might snip every other one (or even less) and see if that makes any difference.

On an unrelated note, I found a guy online who managed to install a bean mass probe in his. Interesting project. I ordered the parts to replicate, we'll see how that goes.

http://roasthacker.com/?p=67