Tips for a light roast in the Behmor 1600+

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
ayevey
Posts: 3
Joined: 6 years ago

#1: Post by ayevey »

Hi folks,

I am a newbie roaster, and, in fact, this is my first post at HB. I have been reading many helpful and informative posts here from all of you home roasters out there for a good few months now, in anticipation of getting myself started home roasting. Thank you for all the time you put into sharing your insights with beginners like myself.

Of course, as I am sure many here know, there is a learning curve to roasting, which I imagine is compounded by the use of a Behmor, where the feedback it gives you is very rough indeed (i.e. no bean probe and temperature readings that can't possibly reflect actual temperatures). To make matters worse for me, I live in northern Mexico and the only green coffee I have available is a Pluma Hidalgo (from Oaxaca), which, though an absolutely fantastic coffee, is one I have no grower data on. The particular vendor I've got, from when I lived in Oaxaca, hardly speaks Spanish (much less English) and seems unable or unwilling to supply me any details about the bean. I do not know the altitude at which it is grown, which varietal it is, nor how it is processed. So it's all trial and error, though from looking at the bean, it seems to be hard based on the tightly closed split.

Anyway, I have roasted this bean about ten times now. The first three or four roasts came out very acidic and underdeveloped. As I got braver and pushed further into FC, though, the flavor profiles began to improve. I was able to produce a very nice light roast and a very nice medium one. However, these were all 1/4 pound roasts. I recently bumped up my charge size to half a pound, and now am not finding myself able to reproduce the light roast. It seems that even if I hit cool just at the end of FC, I still end up with a Full City+ or so.

I am hoping perhaps someone more experienced might be able to offer me some tips on how to produce a lighter roast using a 1/2 charge.

To be clear, the process I've used is:

1. 1:45 min. preheat with chaff tray in place
2. Insert 1/2 pound of beans, hit P5 for 100% power and D for fast drum speed
3. About five minutes in I am needing to drop to P4 for a few seconds to avoid overheating and an Err2 shutdown, but I go quickly back to P5
4. First crack hits around 7:30, at which point I hit D to drop to slow drum speed, which I maintain for the remainder of the roast
5. After 30 seconds into FC, I drop to P3 for 50% power
6. A minute into FC, I drop to P1 to cut power, until my B temperature drops to around 300
7. I return to P3 for 50% power till FC finishes (roughly two minutes elapsed from start of FC), then hit cool, though I find there are always a couple stragglers even after the elements shut down
8. I immediately open the door and blow a fan directly into the oven as it runs the cool cycle

I should note that, with the medium roast, I used the same steps but obviously kept roasting to five seconds into SC. SC began about five-ten seconds after FC.

I am posting images of the green bean, the 1/4 light roast that came out as I wished, and the 1/2 roast I tried to roast as a light roast but that came out darker than I'd wished.





Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

-Newbie roaster David D

badperson
Posts: 159
Joined: 13 years ago

#2: Post by badperson »

not sure if this is relevant or not, but I used a behmor for a long time (have a Quest M3 now) .

Mine likely had fewer options than yours...I could do a quick pre-heat of the beans, but that was it. If I let the pre-heat go too long, then the machine got too hot and I had to wait for it to cool down before I could start a new cycle. I was not able to change cycles midway thru the roast.

I would always use the 1lb setting and adjust the batch size to get the roast level I wanted. I think the behmors are pretty sensitive to voltage, so not sure how that affects you. I also found it extremely difficult to get a batch into second crack, unless I had the 1lb (P3 was the norm for me) setting and had a batch size of about 6oz.

My normal MO was to use the same settings and have a batch size of 10oz or so, and that gave me a nice full city roast.

so, for a light roast, you may want to try those 1lb settings with 10oz coffee, and then start adding coffee until you get the roast level you want.

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yakster
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Posts: 7319
Joined: 15 years ago

#3: Post by yakster »

David,

7:30 seems a bit soon for first crack in a Behmor and if your roasts are coming out full city when you try and stop right when first crack is finishing it sounds like you're going into first crack with a lot of momentum which is carrying you though too quickly.

Like the previous poster, I like to roast larger batches in my Behmor and find that 300 - 350 gram batches are close to ideal for me and my roaster. Keep in mind, I've got an old Behmor that's been upgraded with the Plus control board but has the old chaff tray so your mileage may vary.

What I did in my roaster to get a better feel for where things were at was to snake a thermocouple wire under the door to below the bottom heating element (after trying it on the roof of the roaster where the temps varied too much) and stuck a second thermocouple wire into the grate of the exhaust. The second thermocouple doesn't measure much until the squirrel cage fan in back kicks on to get rid of any smoke, but once it does it proxies for bean temp for me. I use this to adjust the temps in my roaster with the buttons and a variac (to make sure I have enough voltage since I have a 120 V roaster).

Good luck and I'd try some experiments where you change one variable, like the heat ramp while looking down the others like batch size and compare the results.

I also will pull the drum a minute into the cooling cycle and dump the beans into my own home-made bean cooler for larger batches to cool down the beans quicker.

I don't know if they'll work with you, but check out this specialty coffee distributor that imports coffees from Mexico into the USA and Canada:. http://www.internationalpremiumcoffee.com.
-Chris

LMWDP # 272

ayevey (original poster)
Posts: 3
Joined: 6 years ago

#4: Post by ayevey (original poster) »

Hi guys,

Thanks for the responses.

Yakster,

You say 7:30 sounds too early for FC. I am wondering, could you possibly share what a successful time progression looks like for you, i.e. when you hope to hit FC more or less, how long it ought to last more or less, and how soon after that SC ought to begin. I realize this is a general question, but any insight here would be greatly appreciated. I think, in fact, that it would be more helpful to me to get a sense of WHEN things should be happening for a good roast than how hot they should be happening at, especially considering the imprecision of Behmor's built-in thermocouples and the variation many people mention from one roaster to the next, not to mention environmental/ambiental variants.

Thanks so much again for your time in helping me out.

Best regards,
David