Behmor Roaster

This is my cooling apparatus…

MediumRoastSteam Very good, cools the beans and sucks up all the chaff….

CoffeePhilE yes, limited capacity but that limited capacity means roasting more often. And that is both an advantahge and disadvantage. The more I investigate, the more I feel the need to learn about roasting, and THEN doing small batches and being able to keep almost all parameters fixed and consistent (via profile) makes it much easier to learn the effects of changing just one parameter. Also, the bigger the batch, the more expensive any batch-ruining cockups will be.

My two cents: I wouldn’t get something with a very small capacity. You can always do a small batch on a machine with larger capacity, but not the other way around. Remember that you lose weight in the roasting process. From 100 grams - what will you have left? How much do you use in a shot? How many shots will you get our of it? You want to be able to dial in, then have some left to enjoy. And you need to rest the beans, so might be a week or two before they peak and you find out what you have. Or you might want to taste the coffee in intervals to find the optimal resting time… For me 100 gram batches seem impractical, and I think I would get tired of that quite quickly.

I am using the Gene, by the way, which can do ~250 grams batches. Don’t have experience with many other roasters, as I got mine in 2009 and it’s still going strong. I read some people think the Behmor is an upgrade over the Gene, while others think the Gene is an upgrade from the Behmor. With the current offer prices, if I were in the market for a roaster, I would be quick to snatch either the Behmor or the Gene before they go up in price again (but of course it could be that they are reduced because a new model is on the way, if that’s a concern).

Doram

I agree, and you can always make a small batch in a big roaster, but you can’t make a big batch in a small one. The Behmor will happily roast 100g but that’ll only give 80-90g of roasted, which for me is only about 5 shots.

Doram All good points.

To adresss some of them ….

• how many shots? Well, typically, 18g for espresso, but more for a Clever jug. How many of each I do varies day to day, and which one depends on time of day, and mood. . Rarely more tha 3 or 4 ina day, and typical is probably about 2.5. I also tend to switch to decaf in the evening, so it’s likely I’ll have three or even four bean selections on the go at any given time, and I’m normally the only one drinking ‘proper’ coffee. The bigger they are, the older they get by the time I get to the end.
• According to Dave’s review, the theoretical 100g max is actually more like 150g. I assume, perhas erroneously, that there is a degree of repeatability if roasting to a known profile, in fairly short order. Yeah, beans can change as they age, but how much difference (and so how much dialing in) will be needed if I roast bean x on Monday, then again on say Thursday (given consistency in as many factors as possible, especially weight, but also environmental factors like ambient temperature, whether first roast of several back to back roasts or whether the roaster is already hot, etc).
• Agreed on most beans needing resting time. That’s a matter of planning, though. If I expect to need them on Friday, and they need (say) 5 days rest after roast to optimise, I need to roast on Sat/Sunday.
• I take the point about it “getting old quick”. My circumstances do lend themselves to that, though. It certainly wouldn’t for lots of people.
• Again, due to circumstances, getting more roasts done in a short period of time accelerates the learning curve. For me, doing two or three a week is a good thing, compared to doing two or three a month, for larger batches. I agree that usually those small batches would be a negative, but for me, I think they’re actually a positive. Maybe I need to explain why. Let me think about that a bit.
• I also take the point about “loss”. I understand 11-15% weight is about typical, but it varies bean to bean.
• One of the things that puts me off the Behmor is what appears a rather awkward manouvre getting the cage in, and especially out. Without gory details, I have very restricted usage of my left arm and, at least short of a finger amputation op, no way am I getting my left hand inside a glove, and have limited strength/movement in that arm anyway. A mitt? Maybe.
• The Gene seems, from watching videos, to be much easier for me than the Behmor, in relation to getting the cage in or out, The Nano even more so, and the Ikawa is a dream in that regard.
• Repeatability. I think there, the Sandbox does pretty well, and probably (at a price) the Ikawa even more so. In case you haven’t seen it, you load a measured quantity of beans in a kind-of feed chamber in the top of the Ikawa, then “drop” into the pre-heated roasted rather like more commercial roasters, but on a micro scale. They roast on a fluid air bed, and, upon completion, you push a button and they’re dumped into the waiting containers. The Ikawa especially seems, to me, to be designed as a sample roaster for bigger machines, and seems to concentrte on better sensor data, giving profiles that are transferable to bigger roasters, and hence, have to be somewhat repeatable.
• I want to stress, I don’t and never have roasted so much as bean 1. This is what I’m picking up from watching videos, both on product demos but also theory and commercial roasting classes, and from reading books. But I’m painfully aware that that kind of research only carries me so far, which is why I value opinions from you guys.
• So, from the last point, this post isn’t intended to argue with you. I’m trying to explain why my priorities might be a bit different to yours, and most people’s. I hope. And that as a result, the ‘best’ machine might be, too.
• I started out thinking exactly as you outlined, and concluded the same - Gene or Behmor. It’s just that the more I looked, and the more I thought about it, the more the single biggest weakness of “sample” roasters, capacity, started to look like a strength, in my case.

One thing currently making me very, very nervous about the Sandbox (and other Smart App roasters) is, well, needing to control it via a phone. Even more so,the “VIP” mode subscription. That frosts my conkers badly. And I have so far failed to find out what it costs, or how the roaster is limited if you don’t have the ‘VIP’ subscription. I very much resent the notion of paying that much for the roaster, then having to pay a subscription to use it, so whether that aspect kills the Sandbox stone dead for me will depend on how much, and what not having it locks out.

If the subscription is to fund extra services, the provision of which incurs a cost for the providers, then fair enough. If not having it restricts the ability to control the actual hardware, then it’s a non-starter for me.

CoffeePhilE

Based on that, I wouldn’t get the Behmor. It is as I said a pain to get the cage out when hot and then unclip and dump the beans.

I was tempted by the Sandbox also but like you, didn’t Like the idea of a premium VIP cost for what are, as far as I could tell, user generated profiles.

CoffeePhilE

With regards to the sandbox subscription…. Exactly my thoughts. If you are not registered, you can still use the roaster, but you are limited on what you can do… I.e.: no custom profiles, etc.

If register, you can use the roaster to its full potential, the VIP giving you some extra perks.

My concern, similar to yours, is… if Sandbox smart decides not to support a particular phone, or goes bust, or whatever… what happens? What if hey block you from using the app, etc?

So, no, based on that alone, it’s a no no for me. I wish it could be controlled by some small buttons on the machine, or some sort of control box you could buy. The phone being an add on.

It’s a great roaster, however. If it wasn’t for the roasting over the phone aspect, I’d buy one in a heartbeat.

MediumRoastSteam

Exactly. A pet peeve of mine in the PC gaming world is Steam …. being committed to launching via their platform, despite havning paid £40, £50 or more per game, So if they go broke, ban me, whatever, then what? I could have (probably would have) spent a few grand on games, but for that. But, not doing it.

On the Sandbox, if VIP gives you forum access and finding/loading profiles from others in there, then fair enough. But what if I get a profile directly from a mate with a Sandbox? What about creating one manually? What about another Sandbox user on here?

Perhaps most insidious …. if I buy into the hardware now, what’s to stop them changing their mind about what they decide they’ll let me do with “their” roaster, in the future? It isn’t their damn roaster, once I:ve bought it. It’s mine. And I don’t like the idea of them deciding, post-sale, that I shouldn’t be allowed to do this or that, when if they’d said that before I bought it, I wouldn’t have bought it.

I have a DJI drone and am in that position with that. So far, thankfully, I haven’t been screwed over by them …. and it’s a cracking (like the coffee reference?) little drone too. But I’m aware of the possibility.

Ditto the Nano, which seems both better and worse. That, it seems, you have to create or edit a profile on a computer (Windows or Linux-based in my case) and then upload it to a USB stick. Then transfer from USB to the roaster, after which you appear to have very little control. Again, not ideal.

The Ikawa? Dunno. Still trying to get my head around that,

But those factors might be what brings me back to Gene/Behmor …. or to just buying my coffee roasted for me.

Another thing, re: Sandbox. I’ve just noticed on their website a ‘feature’ that says …. “Automatic Cloud Data Record”.

First, no. In fact, <bleep>. no. I don’t want anything getting automatically stored in the cloud under someone else’s control unless it’s something I absolutely need, and certainly not what/when/how I roast. Can that be disabled?

Secondly, how? I keep mobile data on my phone turned OFF. Which probably means using my wifi, so now I need to trust them with that, too? To roast coffee? The Sandbox is looking more and more like a dead duck to me.

Maybe the best bet for me is a roaster that doesn’t and can’t use a smartphone at all, in the first place?

This recommendation popped up in amazon, when I was ordering something. Frankly, I did not check the details. Take a look anyway and note there is no pun intended.

CoffeePhilE Only you know what you want/need and what will work for you. I was just pointing out that you have to know that a small batch means you need to roast more often, so you should be sure you are happy to do that (not only in the initial excitement phase, but also when you just want to drink coffee and enjoy it).

You mentioned having 3-4 beans at a time. You also mentioned 5-day resting. You said correctly that it’s about planning. I currently find my roasts peak at ~14 days (not 5), for expresso. I think if I wanted to have 3-4 different beans, all perfectly rested and done in 100 gram batches (netting 80-90 grams each - which would give you 5 shots max each, and less than that in the Clever jug) - I would be constantly roasting and planning, with not much time left to enjoy life. If this works for you and this is what you want - it’s all good. Personally I would prefer something that enables me to do a bigger batch, knowing that I could always do smaller batches as well if I wanted to.

I have never seen the IKAWA or the Nano in real life, so this might be completely unfair, but looking at some videos they remind me of the popcorn poppers I started roasting on 25 years ago. To me they look like VERY overpriced popcorn poppers with a chip and some electronics. But again - maybe this isn’t fair.

Doram

I think I said “and they need (say) 5 days rest after roast to optimise”. Just to clarify, my understanding is that it varies. There are outliers. Rarely (but occasionally) you can brew within hours. Others, again rare, it can be 6 to 8 weeks. Beans are complex little beggars, and vary a lot. I was suggesting 5 days as an example period, to illustrate the Fri/prev-Sunday thing. not a suggestion. I’ve seen lots of suggestions, and typically, 4 to 7 days seems to be a commonly quoted realistic minimum, most of the time. If 14 days works for you, it’s what works. My guess is it will vary bean to bean, roast profile affects it, even perhaps size of batch. Somewhere, I guess we’ve either got to draw an acceptable average, or send a hell of a lot of time testing every variation, to work out the optimum.

One othrer thing, of course, that impacts on the “optimum” resting time is how we assess that, which ultimately, is taste. And we all can only know our own taste buds. Different people taste things very differently. You may be a super-taster, but I don’t believer I am. Or a front-palate taster and I’m rear. Or vice-versa. It’s very hard to compare.

It’s hard to now what’ll work for me, in terms of batch size, and I really do get your point. I’m sorry I;m being a bit vague, but there are reasons why I think, and I’ll stress think the smaller batch size probably won’t be the problem for me that it is for you, and indeed, probably would for most people. In general, I do very much agree with the way you see it. It’s just that my circumstances aren’t normal, and it’s given me a very different perspective on some things.

As for popcorn poppers, I can see what you mean. Visually, yeah. And I say this with the vaveat that I haven’t seen them in the flesh either. But from what I understand, they are considerably more polished than that, especially the Ikawa. They seem to bear much the same resemblance to popcorn poppers as the Niche Zero does to the old Krups chopping ‘grinder’ I used to prep filter coffee for my Melitta in the ’70s. But …. I haven’t had hands-on either,.

CoffeePhilE - this was me with the Gene and the dimmer mod today.

The Gene has a lot of issues: long cooling cycle, inability to control anything other than temperature, and is quite noisy compared to others, to the point that hearing first crack might be challenging. I had one for approx. 1.5 years a few years ago and I couldn’t get on with it. The wiser (read: older) me have made peace with it again, and I’m giving roasting another go. Still, miles worse compared to what you get from the pros, sometimes I just can’t stand my own roasts, but I hope to learn again. The Sandbox, in my experience, despite its fundamental flaw as discussed above, is a lot better than the Gene. The newer Behmor is the dark horse. Mine had an issue so it went back to HasBean for a full refund. I never managed to roast with it.

Found the problem with Ikawa, at least for now. App=iPhone only. Android “coming soon”. Uh-huh. When it does, wake me up.

CoffeePhilE I agree with everything you said about resting times: It’s subjective, it depends on the beans, the roast level and other variables. I didn’t mean to say ‘beans need 14 days resting time’ (that would just be silly). I mentioned it as an example/illustration of the small batch size limitation: How did I find out that I liked bean X 14 days off roast? Because I had enough of this coffee for two weeks. I started drinking it 7 days off roast, then continued every day and noticed it gets better (to my taste) closer to 14 days. If I only had 3-5 shots of it, I would finish drinking it at day 9.5 max (so it would have been difficult to find out I prefer it at 14 days). This is what I meant. :-)

As for the Ikawa - it better well be considerably more polished for what it costs, lol. I have the Niche and am very happy with it, but I think I would have to be out of my mind to spend £970 on a 50g batch roaster however polished it may be (and yet, it got two 5* reviews. So this is only my opinion, and I don’t have any pretence that anyone else should agree).

Doram

I think the batch size thing is a bit of a double-edged sword, either way. The Ikawa does seem to be a very different creature from popcorn poppers,though there is the visual similarity of the vertical design.But then, if you’re going to use the fluid bed method, it kinda has to be vertical. One review I watched (the hour long one) did point out it’s very solid, and surprisingly heavy. Their website points out it’s a single piece (uni-body) aluminium frame weighing some 5Kg, and the top is precision-cut glass. In other words, pretty substantial. It’s also a ‘Home’ version of the Professional versions used in industry (such as for grading) and, for that matter, extensively in competition.

There is, of course, a relationship between batch size and roast time. The Ikawas are designed specifically for small batches, like sampling. I mean, they are sample roasters, after all. One use case is where commercial buyers are sent, well, ‘samples’, often 100g, prior to (the seller hopes) placing bulk orders. Then, you really need small batch sizes, which is why the Pro version gained a separate 50g version because it allowed two roastings from that 100g rather than just one, so maybe two profiles, or one for filter and another for espresso. Also, they’re fast.

My point is that they’re proper commercial machines, built for a very specific job, sample roating. Also for coffee grading, and as a development roaster. The Home version is a simplified version of the 100g Pro version.

And, as they point out, they are designed for back-to-back roasts. Given fast roasts (typically 6-10 minutes), I could always do two or three back-to-back 100g roasts if I need, say, 300g, rather thn a single 250-300g roast in the Gene or Behmor.

I think my fairly specific circumstances might well suit that better than the Gene/Behmor approach. This is what I meant when I said I started out thinking Gene/Behmor, but the more I thought about it, the more the smaller batch seems to fit my needs well. Either way, there’s advantages and disadvantages. Doing two or three back-to-back roasts certainly has a downside, but then the bigger home roasters aren’t ideally suited to doing multiple, small roasts, perhaps to test the impact on taste of varied roast profiles. It very much depends on how they’ll be used.

As for £970, I agree they’re expensive BUT …. if it does the job well, I don’t care. I’d rather have it cost that and be right for me, than £500 and not be right. For instance, given my disability, the method of getting beans in, and out, is a very marked advantage over the Gene, Behmor or evem Sandbox. I know I won’t struggle getting the cage in (or worse, out, when it’s very hot).

But then, the iOS only thing, at the moment, is an issue. I did find a vague reference to the “new” Home app wasn’t available yet, but it implied the existing Android version of the Pro app was, and would work. I think I need to talk to Ikawa about that.

If, and I stress if the price is justified, then it’s not a concern. After all, some things are expensive, but justify it, like Rolls Royce, Patek Philippe watches, the Dorchester hotel, BMW (though that one might be controversial) or Porsche. If it’s a ludicrously over-priced popcorn popper then that’s different, but it isn’t how it looks to me.

CoffeePhilE - Kelly’s Ice Cream.

CoffeePhilE - if you stick an Apple logo on the Ikawa, it fits quite nicely. Maybe one reason they haven’t bothered with Android. Remember, the ikawa has been out for a while. If they haven’t written an app for it yet - most likely they won’t.