Behmor - Optimizing 1/4 Pound Roasts - Page 3

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
maccompatible
Posts: 285
Joined: 10 years ago

#21: Post by maccompatible »

jeffgerards wrote:If you haven't seen it, I would definitely recommend checking out out the youtube video I posted. That style of vacuum cooling unit has made the biggest difference in flavor/aroma extraction of any variable change that I've made in tweaking my process.
It's funny you mention that. Because I basically have your EXACT cooling method in my garage that I built after watching your video. It's an honor to be able to thank you directly for that brilliance. :D

On the other hand, I've made some more changes after even MORE testing and I think I've found my new favorite way to use my Behmor. It's surprisingly much simpler, too.

1. Preheat on the 1 lb setting using manual P5, and load 155g of beans in the drum meantime.
2. At the 6 minute mark (12 left on the timer) is usually when my roaster approaches the overheat temp, so I open the door and insert the drum at this time. It's a little tricky with the motor still spinning, but not unmanageable.
3. With all the heat lost by opening the door and loading in a batch of room temp green coffee, I just leave it on P5. It approaches overheating again just before the fans/afterburner come on, which makes this all work.
4. Give it 4 total minutes on P5 (the beans should be yellowing), then decrease to P4 for 3 minutes (until first crack), then decrease to P3 and hold here until the roast is done. This profile was done for the "average" coffee (washed, moderately high grown, medium size beans).
5. Cool the beans quickly.


I REALLY enjoy doing it this way because it allows me to throw as much heat on the beans as I want without overheating the Behmor. A 1/3 lb batch finishes 90 seconds faster when doing it this way rather than starting the 1 lb timer from the beginning, even with a maximal preheat. I feel like this allows me to truly know I'm applying the MOST heat at the beginning, and only decreasing as the roast progresses, as it should be for an appropriately decreasing ROR. And if I want to roast slower, I can just increase the batch size. I'm not entirely sure about adjusting the length of each phase of heat setting, as I'm unsure what that would do to the roast profile, and I have no means of testing that. But based on the data I DO have, and the results I'm getting from this method, I highly recommend trying it.
"Wait. People drink coffee just for the caffeine??"
LMWDP #628

jeffgerards
Posts: 16
Joined: 5 years ago

#22: Post by jeffgerards replying to maccompatible »


You're very welcome. Haha. But giving credit where credit is due, Sweet Maria's is the real hero. Haha.

I've been mulling over changing my "routine" as lately I've been getting a little more baked flavors even with the faster cooling practice. I think my ROR is just stalling too much. I've heard about others preheating up to 325º+ and I might try that and see where it gets me. I've been pre-heating for 2 min and after doing the door dance, It takes about 4 min for the temp to reach ~315º and the beans are already well into yellowing. My fear was always that I would scream through the yellowing phase too quickly but maybe that's not as big of an issues as I thought. I do 1/2lb charges and usually get to 1C around the 9 min mark.

One question I do have is what do you classify as your roast being "done". Are you following Rao's 75-80% development rule? I usually do 80% because I prefer light-medium roasts so my practice is, as soon as 1C hits, take that time and divide it by 0.80 and that gives you your total roast time with the development phases at 20% of the total roast time.

Also, if you're at all handy with a soldering iron, installing a toggle switch to turn the drum motor on/off is one of the easiest mods you can do on the behmor and it makes the door dance a whole lot easier. Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TmQj_NlokY

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obfuscurity
Posts: 7
Joined: 5 years ago

#23: Post by obfuscurity »

I hope you all don't mind me adding to this thread, but I've found it very informative and useful as I continue to struggle with my 1/4lb roasts on the Behmor 1600ab plus. I've enjoyed attempting each of your "recipes" though I also find myself fighting against the Behmor once the temps inevitably divert from a traditional profile. I suspect that there really is no way to control the Behmor such that its behavior will ever resemble that of a more capable roaster. Regardless, I thought it may be helpful to future readers to visualize these profiles and gain context that might otherwise go unwritten.

I've attached my Artisan report from a 1/4lb batch today, following DavidZ's original post in this thread. Note that I preheated with the 1lb setting up to 320F on the ET sensor, before turning off the oven, charging 115g of greens, and then resuming DavidZ's recipe. The power changes to P5, P4, and P3 (at FC) are visible as events on the ET curve. Apologies for missing the actual charge and TP on the graph, I missed hitting the Start button in Artisan until after the charge.

I'm using Phidget sensors to track the roast temperatures: a fiberglass-sheathed thermocouple attached to the chaff tray and a standard thermocouple mounted on the wall above the heating elements. You can see photos of their placement here.



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