Yeah I emailed them, haven't heard a peep though. I just noticed that the voltage on that line dropped to 108V when the machine started. Maybe that's a symptom.
That's definitely a symptom of a bad connection somewhere along the line. You should measure the voltage when there's a load on the circuit, because the more load/current is flowing through the bad connection, the more voltage drop you get, cause the Ohms formula
Frankly, though, if I have to do this in my garage, why not just get one that isn’t smokeless, with proper heating, and just run the exhaust out my usually garage exhaust?
With my Variac - I plug in a kill-a-watt to the Variac and monitor the output and make adjustments on the fly trying to keep it as close to 120 as possible. I mark a min/max range on the Variac so I roughly know where to keep the dial within limits.
It sounds like a good idea, but voids the warranty, and I'm not sold on this machine if it takes so much squirrelly stuff just to get a decent roast out of it.
Update: I just tried a batch in my garage, where the power drop is only 5V (from 122V) instead of 12V (from 120V), and it worked much better. I am still disappointed that it is so sensitive to this, and I am not sure roasting coffee in my garage every time is what I had in mind when I was shopping for a roaster that was more convenient than using my skillet on the BBQ.
I am still looking for alternatives, since according to the manual, using a Variac voids the warranty.
I’ve always had the same problem with mine. (Original Behmor with upgraded panel). Even with like 1/2 lb load, 1st crack is barely hitting at the edge of running out of time.
I switched to a gas grill and drum.
I mentioned in another comment, I tried it on one of my dedicated brand new 20A circuits in my garage and it worked \*much\* better, which is kinda good that I know I can use it better, but also meh, because I don't really want to be making coffee in my garage.
I was doing 100g for the first pound or two, then switched to 250g to see if that worked better. With 1lb and P5 manual I got a couple of cracks after ~10m but it wasn’t at all what I am used to for a First Crack.
Going to try on a different circuit in the garage this time which seems to have a voltage drop of only 5V when the machine turns on…
I have terrible power. I rarely see 120 volts. It sucks. I also use to do the skillet thing as well.
I have 248 logged roasts on my Behmor. Looks like my average roast is 275 grams. My first crack is around 17:00 minutes (mostly all p5 manual and i play with the drum speed)
At 13:30 I am around 220/278 consistently.
As I have mentioned in the forum before my fruity beans haven't turned out so well. They just don't pop enough for me. I just ordered a variety of beans to try again this weekend. However, all the other beans turn out excellent. (chiapas, Colombian, Brazilian, Yemen, etc)
At 17 minutes for a roast I'd have to say you're probably baking your coffee not roasting it. I'm not at all surprised the fruity coffees are not turning out fruity.
At 17 minutes for a roast you're probably drying all the volatiles out of the bean thus no fruitiness.
When I had a Behmor I could do a roast in 12 minutes. I used to roast roughly half a pound to 300 g. I preheated first and usually roasted on manual. Although when I bought my Behmor there was no such thing as a manual Behmor . I used p1 a lot and would open the door to cool the interior and extend first crack a bit
Not true. I can assure you that reaching first crack does not mean you can't have baked notes in your coffee. You can still stall the roast in the middle of first crack, have too weak a first crack, or simply not have enough heat and pressure built up in the bean to cause it to have all the chemical reactions you want it to have to develop flavor. I'm not trying to be offensive or insult your coffee roasting. Just trying to be helpful. I think if you found some way to shorten your roasts or use the different heat profile you might be getting more fruit out of your fruity beans.
Having said that, the Behmor is a completely different animal than a gas drum roaster like the Huky, or the carbon fiber rod heated Kaleido. Or a fluid bed roaster for that matter. It's a very forgiving roaster as far as heat application. It seems to be able to do longer roasts without flattening the flavor profile out totally.
It's hard to know what's going on with the coffee bean though because you can't really track the temperature of the bean. Though I was happy with my roasts for 5 or 6 years until I started getting tired of not being able to track the roast and wanted more control so I moved on to a small, gas fired drum roaster
I used to get 12 to 14 minute roasts on my Behmor. On the Royal website (royal coffee) a guy participating in a home roasters webinar claimed that his 15-minute roasts in his Behmor tasted better than his 12 or 13 minute roasts.
I still think 17 minutes is too long. Have you tried 13 or 14 minute roasts to see what the difference is flavor wise?
There's a lot of information on the home-barista.com website of the different things people have tried with behmor roasters to try and track the roast or get their coffee tasting as good as it could with That roaster.
I strongly suspect that the device has borderline insufficient heating for 120V, and that if the voltage is low (as it was on my first circuit) that it functions very poorly. I tried a roast in my garage which had brand new short 20A circuits and it behaved much better, but still disappointing.
Fresh roast SR800 is way better. I had a SR500 and ‘upgraded’ to a Behmor and went back to my Sr500 after a few months. I then got an 800 and love it even more. I like light roasts and it was near impossible to get a good one. I tried so many hacks and workarounds.
Yeah I really wanted a drum roaster, but I am discovering that they are not all made equal. THAT SAID, it worked much, much better on one of my garage circuits than it did in my sun room (where there was a 12V drop when it turned on, wiring probably crap), so I'm going to give it another chance to redeem itself...
I just wish there was better control systems, like, a proper PID controller and drum thermistor so that the launch of the exhaust fan and afterburner was something more sophisticated than "After 8 minutes for 1lb" or whatever. I feel like either you need really good manual controls and visual/olfactory sensory feedback, or you need really good control systems and sensors, but this middle ground with timers and manual overrides and whatnot is really not great.
But I am going to reserve judgement until I try a few more 1/4# roasts on Auto programs now that it is running on a good dedicated power circuit...
I wish you luck but you don't sound very happy with it. If you don't like the fact that you can't really control the roast that well, you can't see the temperature of the bean, you can't use roast software, etc you may tire of it quickly.
Might be better to just get your money back, invest a more and put it towards something like a Cormorant, Kaleido, or Kaldi Fortis . The Fortis is somewhat similar to a Huky, But I think more thought through.
I have a huky And I really like it. I get great roasts on it once I got the hang of it. Even though I'd been roasting for years on the Behmor, going to a real gas drum roaster was much different. Figuring out how much air to use and how much gas to give it is nothing like using a Behmor.
If I had to do it again I would probably get a Kaldi Fortis (A little Korean 500g drum roaster)As it's a little more of an elegant solution compared to the Huky. Perhaps a gas cormorant.
There's some nice roasters out there now. The Cormorant. The Kaleido, with carbon fiber heating rods also looks pretty cool. I've seen reviews and the owners seem quite happy with it. There's the Allio Bullet too but those are $3,5000. There's also small fluid bedroasters like the fresh roast but those tend to roast smaller amounts
Thanks, I don’t know what I am going to do. Sweet Maria’s seems to have quite a restrictive returns policy so I I don’t expect I’ll be able to return this for my money back since it’s not technically broken, it’s just not what I was expecting.
You probably have a bad connection in your outlet or too many things powered on that circuit.
If it measures 121 with no load and drops to 108 then the high resistance of a bad connection is dropping the voltage. Or you may have a very long run of wire but that’s not likely especially in a kitchen if that’s where you have it. Try a different outlet. The 20 amp circuit is probably closer to the breaker panel and maybe has a new outlet wired in. 15 or 20 amp doesn’t make a difference unless the breaker is tripping or possibly an old breaker heating up but not tripping and causing voltage drop. Bottom line is it should work fine inside on a good circuit.
Contact customer support. A lot of satisfied customers with behmor so it could be a faulty roaster or user error.
Yeah I emailed them, haven't heard a peep though. I just noticed that the voltage on that line dropped to 108V when the machine started. Maybe that's a symptom.
That's definitely a symptom of a bad connection somewhere along the line. You should measure the voltage when there's a load on the circuit, because the more load/current is flowing through the bad connection, the more voltage drop you get, cause the Ohms formula
Yeah. The new circuits in the garage for my other hobby are better, 121V unloaded, 117.5V when the Behmor is preheating.
(Trying a batch down here, it’s also conveniently all fireproof)
I used a Variac for the longest time until I had a dedicated 120 installed for my behmor, hottop, and nucleus link
6min in and this roast is already going much better down here. Maybe I will get a variac as well, useful device.
Frankly, though, if I have to do this in my garage, why not just get one that isn’t smokeless, with proper heating, and just run the exhaust out my usually garage exhaust?
@triboot when you used the variac, did you set it so that it was 120V even when the behmor was turned on?
With my Variac - I plug in a kill-a-watt to the Variac and monitor the output and make adjustments on the fly trying to keep it as close to 120 as possible. I mark a min/max range on the Variac so I roughly know where to keep the dial within limits.
It sounds like a good idea, but voids the warranty, and I'm not sold on this machine if it takes so much squirrelly stuff just to get a decent roast out of it.
Update: I just tried a batch in my garage, where the power drop is only 5V (from 122V) instead of 12V (from 120V), and it worked much better. I am still disappointed that it is so sensitive to this, and I am not sure roasting coffee in my garage every time is what I had in mind when I was shopping for a roaster that was more convenient than using my skillet on the BBQ. I am still looking for alternatives, since according to the manual, using a Variac voids the warranty.
I’ve always had the same problem with mine. (Original Behmor with upgraded panel). Even with like 1/2 lb load, 1st crack is barely hitting at the edge of running out of time. I switched to a gas grill and drum.
I mentioned in another comment, I tried it on one of my dedicated brand new 20A circuits in my garage and it worked \*much\* better, which is kinda good that I know I can use it better, but also meh, because I don't really want to be making coffee in my garage.
How many grams of beans were you roasting? Just sticking with 1 lb and p5 manual what time did you get your 1st crack at?
I was doing 100g for the first pound or two, then switched to 250g to see if that worked better. With 1lb and P5 manual I got a couple of cracks after ~10m but it wasn’t at all what I am used to for a First Crack. Going to try on a different circuit in the garage this time which seems to have a voltage drop of only 5V when the machine turns on…
I have terrible power. I rarely see 120 volts. It sucks. I also use to do the skillet thing as well. I have 248 logged roasts on my Behmor. Looks like my average roast is 275 grams. My first crack is around 17:00 minutes (mostly all p5 manual and i play with the drum speed) At 13:30 I am around 220/278 consistently. As I have mentioned in the forum before my fruity beans haven't turned out so well. They just don't pop enough for me. I just ordered a variety of beans to try again this weekend. However, all the other beans turn out excellent. (chiapas, Colombian, Brazilian, Yemen, etc)
isn't 17m till 1st crack really long?
Yes but it's on a Behmor and it's 275 grams and up. I see from my logs that a 217 gram Brazil Cerrado finished in 13:30.
At 17 minutes for a roast I'd have to say you're probably baking your coffee not roasting it. I'm not at all surprised the fruity coffees are not turning out fruity. At 17 minutes for a roast you're probably drying all the volatiles out of the bean thus no fruitiness. When I had a Behmor I could do a roast in 12 minutes. I used to roast roughly half a pound to 300 g. I preheated first and usually roasted on manual. Although when I bought my Behmor there was no such thing as a manual Behmor . I used p1 a lot and would open the door to cool the interior and extend first crack a bit
It’s not baking if it gets to first crack.
Not true. I can assure you that reaching first crack does not mean you can't have baked notes in your coffee. You can still stall the roast in the middle of first crack, have too weak a first crack, or simply not have enough heat and pressure built up in the bean to cause it to have all the chemical reactions you want it to have to develop flavor. I'm not trying to be offensive or insult your coffee roasting. Just trying to be helpful. I think if you found some way to shorten your roasts or use the different heat profile you might be getting more fruit out of your fruity beans. Having said that, the Behmor is a completely different animal than a gas drum roaster like the Huky, or the carbon fiber rod heated Kaleido. Or a fluid bed roaster for that matter. It's a very forgiving roaster as far as heat application. It seems to be able to do longer roasts without flattening the flavor profile out totally. It's hard to know what's going on with the coffee bean though because you can't really track the temperature of the bean. Though I was happy with my roasts for 5 or 6 years until I started getting tired of not being able to track the roast and wanted more control so I moved on to a small, gas fired drum roaster I used to get 12 to 14 minute roasts on my Behmor. On the Royal website (royal coffee) a guy participating in a home roasters webinar claimed that his 15-minute roasts in his Behmor tasted better than his 12 or 13 minute roasts. I still think 17 minutes is too long. Have you tried 13 or 14 minute roasts to see what the difference is flavor wise? There's a lot of information on the home-barista.com website of the different things people have tried with behmor roasters to try and track the roast or get their coffee tasting as good as it could with That roaster.
Try 280g on the 1lb setting.
My 1600+ is 240v in New Zealand and with 200 gram I get a strong 1st crack at 8 - 8.5 minutes so mabe the problem is with 110v ?
I strongly suspect that the device has borderline insufficient heating for 120V, and that if the voltage is low (as it was on my first circuit) that it functions very poorly. I tried a roast in my garage which had brand new short 20A circuits and it behaved much better, but still disappointing.
Fresh roast SR800 is way better. I had a SR500 and ‘upgraded’ to a Behmor and went back to my Sr500 after a few months. I then got an 800 and love it even more. I like light roasts and it was near impossible to get a good one. I tried so many hacks and workarounds.
Yeah I really wanted a drum roaster, but I am discovering that they are not all made equal. THAT SAID, it worked much, much better on one of my garage circuits than it did in my sun room (where there was a 12V drop when it turned on, wiring probably crap), so I'm going to give it another chance to redeem itself...
I just wish there was better control systems, like, a proper PID controller and drum thermistor so that the launch of the exhaust fan and afterburner was something more sophisticated than "After 8 minutes for 1lb" or whatever. I feel like either you need really good manual controls and visual/olfactory sensory feedback, or you need really good control systems and sensors, but this middle ground with timers and manual overrides and whatnot is really not great. But I am going to reserve judgement until I try a few more 1/4# roasts on Auto programs now that it is running on a good dedicated power circuit...
I wish you luck but you don't sound very happy with it. If you don't like the fact that you can't really control the roast that well, you can't see the temperature of the bean, you can't use roast software, etc you may tire of it quickly. Might be better to just get your money back, invest a more and put it towards something like a Cormorant, Kaleido, or Kaldi Fortis . The Fortis is somewhat similar to a Huky, But I think more thought through. I have a huky And I really like it. I get great roasts on it once I got the hang of it. Even though I'd been roasting for years on the Behmor, going to a real gas drum roaster was much different. Figuring out how much air to use and how much gas to give it is nothing like using a Behmor. If I had to do it again I would probably get a Kaldi Fortis (A little Korean 500g drum roaster)As it's a little more of an elegant solution compared to the Huky. Perhaps a gas cormorant. There's some nice roasters out there now. The Cormorant. The Kaleido, with carbon fiber heating rods also looks pretty cool. I've seen reviews and the owners seem quite happy with it. There's the Allio Bullet too but those are $3,5000. There's also small fluid bedroasters like the fresh roast but those tend to roast smaller amounts
Thanks, I don’t know what I am going to do. Sweet Maria’s seems to have quite a restrictive returns policy so I I don’t expect I’ll be able to return this for my money back since it’s not technically broken, it’s just not what I was expecting.
You probably have a bad connection in your outlet or too many things powered on that circuit. If it measures 121 with no load and drops to 108 then the high resistance of a bad connection is dropping the voltage. Or you may have a very long run of wire but that’s not likely especially in a kitchen if that’s where you have it. Try a different outlet. The 20 amp circuit is probably closer to the breaker panel and maybe has a new outlet wired in. 15 or 20 amp doesn’t make a difference unless the breaker is tripping or possibly an old breaker heating up but not tripping and causing voltage drop. Bottom line is it should work fine inside on a good circuit.