I am another Gene Cafe user. The earlier poster is correct. The "temperature" on the display is not the temperature of the beans. It is the temperature of the air which is leaving the roast chamber. This leaves you guessing what the actual bean temperature is.

With that said, it can produce good roasts. I normally do 227 Gram roasts (one half US pound). Smaller batches can be more inconsistent, and larger batches can have too slow of a "rate of rise" of the bean temperature. Larger batches may produce more chaff than the "wiper" can clear, resulting in an excessive chamber temperature as well.

Most of my roasts with it go something like this:

Preheat the empty drum for 5 minutes. I use a lower pre-heat temperature for lower altitude beans, and a higher preheat temperature for dense high altitude beans. (preheat is usually in the range of 392 to 402 degrees F, with the occaisional low temp of 350 degrees F).

Stop the roaster, remove and load the drum with beans. Start the roast (the initial phase is dehydrating the beans). After 5 minutes of dehydrating, I raise the temperature to my "roasting temperature". Lower altutude and less dense beans tend to get roasted around 464 degrees F (higher density high altitude beans are roasted at 473 degrees F, for Geisha and Kona I go about 450 degrees F.), this temperature is typically held until first crack is heard plus 30 to 60 seconds (depending upon the bean). After that 30 to 60 seconds the roaster's temperature is lowered to SLOW the rate of rise of the beans. I will drop the temperature to 440 degrees F for low density beans, and 437 degrees F for higher density beans.

When the roast is done, I don't rely upon the Gene Cafe roaster's cooling cycle. It cools too slowly. Instead, I drop the beans into a Colander with air flow blowing through it to rapidly cool the beans (while stirring them).

Overall, I am pretty pleased with the results. I will agree that first crack is hard to hear with SOME coffee beans. This is especially true if the beans have been stored a long time and have lost moisture. Long storage can include the time it sat in a warehouse at the company which sells the beans. Some peaberries can be very difficult to hear as well.

The Gene Cafe is very good at making evenly/consistently roasted beans. It is a hybrid of an air roaster which has a drum for tumbling. It tends to avoid scorching beans rather well. The Gene Cafe makes the basics of roasting beans a bit easier to master.

I use mine outside, as most roasters can put off enough smoke to trigger a smoke detector in home (unless they are vented outside). Replacement parts are readilly available at a low cost. I have not had to replace any, but, I have a spare fan, rubber bumpers, and heating element on hand (as they are the parts which others have most commonly replaced). My unit was originally purchased in 2016. The current models have a few extra protective features where the user must "press a button" so the roaster knows it is not being used unattended. Otherwise, as a safety feature the new model roaster will the shut down.

Now that I have learned the basics of roasting, it is likely I will eventually upgrade to a "big boy" roaster which gives me more data to follow the roasting process with greater precision. But I am further along on the learning curve at this point, had I started with a more complex roaster it would have been a larger learning curve. The Gene Cafe has proven to be a good machine for a first time user.

I'd start with a popper or something else that lets you dip your toes in the water to see if you like it...if you do then you can always invest in something more expensive...but why not start cheap? I assume most ppl who spend thousands of dollars on their home roaster usually do so after having some experience with either a repurposed popcorn popper or a Fresh Roast.

Whirley Pops is cheap. I've loaned ours out a few times and it always came back.

Just roasting for ....me.... requires me to roast 1 lb a week. That's not me and my wife that's just me. And that's all I want to roast, one time per week. I don't want any roaster that can't roast at least 1 lb per batch comfortably.

When you start talking about friends ,family, blah blah blah..... This is just my opinion..... You're talking about a much bigger roaster than your budget allows for.. The bullet is clearly your best bet and your cheapest bet for the quantity you would need.

Yeah it seems like fun at first, most things do when they're new, You're learning.
After a while, it's a chore. Something you HAVE to do if you want to have coffee to drink. Now you're going to volunteer for a chore to do for other people as well.....ha ha... Hope that works out for you..... If you have no other demands on your time it might be fine. If you've got demands on your time..... Well you might see what I mean

Priority's come first. My wife then coffee, then music. Exercise comes last. Being retired helps.

Sometimes I go to bed early so I can wake up and have coffee.

Thank you all for the advice, suggestions, and input everyone!

littlenut wrote: If a friend came to me with the same request/questions/thoughts, I would start by asking him/her to first do a good estimate of how much green coffee they will consume in ~3 weeks.

To estimate consumption, I would tell him/her to do a gut check on how many roasts they want to perform when they roast coffee. (In my case it stops being "fun" after 8 roasts in a roast session.)

Then take How much Coffee and divide by the number of batches to get a ballpark estimate of your minimum batch size. This may help

Greetings fellow Nut!
So you threw math at me, which tends to break my brain a little, but your advice to estimate consumption is very valid. I'm actually not a huge drinker - my partner and I average 2 cups each a day on weekdays, and a little more on weekends. I'd say our bean consumption is around 300g a week in roasted beans? So not a huge amount by any means. However this doesn't include any gifting - if I roasted myself, I'd anticipate giving out maybe another 100 or so? So rounding up, maybe 400g a week.
I can't imagine having fun roasting outdoors back to back 8x being fun, especially in Tokyo's summer heat. So even though I like tinkering, I don't think I'd want to do more than 3-4 roasting sessions max at a time. So you're right, that does help reduce my options!

yakster wrote:Smoke production is mostly a factor of batch size. Expect to need a good ventilation system or to roast outside for larger batches.

- tiny home in Japan means roasting outside is really my only option..

BogongTiger wrote:I can only comment on the Gene Cafe. It's all I've used.

addertooth wrote:I am another Gene Cafe user... Now that I have learned the basics of roasting, it is likely I will eventually upgrade to a "big boy" roaster which gives me more data to follow the roasting process with greater precision. But I am further along on the learning curve at this point, had I started with a more complex roaster it would have been a larger learning curve. The Gene Cafe has proven to be a good machine for a first time user.

Thank you both for sharing your experiences with the Gene Cafe. After reading your posts, I watched a couple of Youtube videos on the entire roasting process and am starting to feel that the Gene is not for me. Something about the way people were controlling heat and cooling in the videos just made it seem like something I'd probably get frustrated with? So I'm leaning towards the Kaldi now..

chasfs wrote:Currently I use an inexpensive Crownful rotisserie toaster oven. I had to modify it because it's thermistor was off and it didn't get hot enough. I've roasted as much as 500g but usually do 390g or so. It's user interface is fair for roasting coffee.

I have a Behmor and it also doesn't get hot enough and it's user interface Is terrible. I would roast about 330g in the Behmor and it would take 25+ minutes.

I also have a Fresh Roast SR500 but its batch size is too small. The SR800 is probably a good fit for you. It's controls are better than most and user interface is ok. The Fresh Roasts are top heavy so care is required. Is SR800 batch size acceptable?

Thank you for sharing your experiences with all those roasters! Your comments on the Behmor reinforce my feeling that I would also get frustrated with it. I was also watching videos on Youtube of the SR800 but I don't think it's going to be for me either - I saw a recent video on someone trying both a Kaldi and an SR800, and the former seemed more along what I'd want to do..

luvmy40 wrote:The Fresh Roast SR800 with OEM extension tube easily roasts 10 oz.(285 g ish). I'd bet 300 g would work just as well.

It's a great, affordable roaster, but completely manual/hands on.

I actually spent some time yesterday going through youtube videos of the Behmor, Kaldi, FreshRoast, and Gene roasters, but the interface and roasting process of the FR didn't look appealing. I know it's colored by the presentation of the person using it in the video, but I just didn't care too much for the knobs and process of the FR

baldheadracing wrote:I'd consider the Fuji Royal "Coffee Discovery" over the R-005 "Ittaro."

The Ittaro is the classic Japanese shop/kissaten roaster, but with a motor added so you don't have to turn the drum by hand.

Regardless, both are quite a bit more expensive than $1500.

At the opposite end, this is an interesting fully manual roast-outside Japanese roaster: https://www.auvelcraft.co.jp/coffee/

Yeah.. I'm dropping the FujiRoyals from consideration - they seem to be high quality but out of my price range

Trjelenc wrote:If you're a tinkerer and want lots of control of variables, get the Behmor off your list. No offense to its users, but I could never do it.

thirdcrackfourthwave wrote:Ditto the 'popper.'

Yeah, after watching videos this weekend, I agree...

Mbb wrote:Just roasting for ....me.... requires me to roast 1 lb a week. That's not me and my wife that's just me. And that's all I want to roast, one time per week. I don't want any roaster that can't roast at least 1 lb per batch comfortably.

When you start talking about friends ,family, blah blah blah..... This is just my opinion..... You're talking about a much bigger roaster than your budget allows for.. The bullet is clearly your best bet and your cheapest bet for the quantity you would need.

Yeah it seems like fun at first, most things do when they're new, You're learning.
After a while, it's a chore. Something you HAVE to do if you want to have coffee to drink. Now you're going to volunteer for a chore to do for other people as well.....ha ha... Hope that works out for you..... If you have no other demands on your time it might be fine. If you've got demands on your time..... Well you might see what I mean

Well, it helps that I don't have too many friends lol

But yeah, I want a machine with the capacity to roast enough in one go so that if I'm busy, I won't feel pressured to roast too frequently. I'm honestly leaning towards the Kaldi units now.

mkane wrote:Priority's come first. My wife then coffee, then music. Exercise comes last. Being retired helps.

Sometimes I go to bed early so I can wake up and have coffee.

Being retired sounds awesome! I'm a couple decades away from that though, unless I happen to win the lottery or something.

Cheerfulnut wrote: <SNIPPAGE>
I'd say our bean consumption is around 300g a week in roasted beans? So not a huge amount by any means. However this doesn't include any gifting - if I roasted myself, I'd anticipate giving out maybe another 100 or so? So rounding up, maybe 400g a week.
I can't imagine having fun roasting outdoors back to back 8x being fun, especially in Tokyo's summer heat. So even though I like tinkering, I don't think I'd want to do more than 3-4 roasting sessions max at a time. So you're right, that does help reduce my options!

Lemme suggest a 2 wk roast cycle. (I've got a Kenyan now that needs ~ 3 weeks to peak to my taste. 2 weeks is not that uncommon IMVHO)
so (400g roasted/week) x (2 weeks/roast) x (1.2 g green coffee/g roasted coffee) = 960 g green coffee/roast session

using 3-4 batches/roast session gives ~250g-320g green per roast

In my experience roasted coffee consumption goes up from the initial expectations (drinking more or drinking more often during the day; friends/neighbors stop by in morning or whenever to have a cup/shot; family or friends bubble over w/ compliments about your coffee and you add them to your gifting program....)

Cheerfulnut wrote:
- tiny home in Japan means roasting outside is really my only option..

I will take you at your word, but with a little "free space" and adequate care the blowers/fans used for inducing/forcing a draft through the roaster and from the cooler tray you can safely exhaust outside.


Hope This Helps,
-Tom

Cheerfulnut wrote:I'm honestly leaning towards the Kaldi units now.

Kaldi Fortis may be the most controllable option for you. Here is another forum member in Japan that did it. I use Kaldi Wide400 but wish I bought Fortis instead due to 400g (roasting capacity of Wide400) being little tight for me. You can obviously roast less than max but more is not recommended. Also, Fortis already comes with bean hopper with gate and exhaust port whereas Wide400 doesn't (I had to build / modify my own).