Too Much Coffee

I am an enormous fan of the Gene Cafe! I love its simplicity. I love the fact that it has 2 dials, one for adjusting time and one for adjusting temperature. This means that in order for my roasting to progress, my knowledge has to as well. It gives me total control over the whole roast proccess.
Now, I am also not blind and realise that the machine has things which people do not like about it. I am not suggesting it is the be all and end all for home roasters and with currency fluctuations has become expensive.

BUT

Can someone with a Behmor please tell me why I ought to at least consider adding one of these to my stable of coffee toys? What actual advantage will I get over the Gene and why.
Thoughts please, and of course, anyone who doeas not have a Behmor is still welcome to eductae me!

A few things:

-The ability to roast almost a pound of coffee at once. I find that very convenient. Roasting is fun but not 2 or 3 times a week.
- A drum roast instead of a hot air roast. (experts say that tastes different)
- After you set the program you can sit and wait till it's done. The only thing you have to care about is touch the cool button before the beans are too dark.
- Price, it's cheap compared to the Hottop and Gene.
For me personal it is more my machine. I like it more then the Gene.

Draws are that you cannot control the roast temperature. The temperature is also not displayed by the machine. Cooling is a bit better then with the Gene but you cannot cool externally like with the Gene.

I don't think that cooling is better than Gene.
As for capacity, yes Behmor roasts more per cycle, but if you look at hourly capacity, Gene is also winner.
Ivo

I got it both, and the first think I notice about taste difference on the same coffee roasted on the Gene and on the Behmor is that this last one got a more rounded flavour, not prevalents higher notes like the Gene.
Before I bought the Behm one, I was struggling to find why do my selfroasted coffee has a thinner mid flavour in respect to the s**t they sell everywhere in bars here in Italy that, despite the well rounded and heavy body, has poor flavours variety and aftertaste.
I was considering the single origin characteristic, alias less presence rather than blends in respect to body...but I have to say, in these few days of Behmor usage, that the kind of roast take in place too.
However, I think Gene is more user-friendly with the cool (at touch!) plastic and the (working) chaff collector. For the lack of temperature monitor issue on the Behm...oh, after all there are such infinite variable in roasting I think it's more a fetish need rather than a useful one.
Again, they're intended for home use both and you can vastly experiments with both of them effortlessly.

Ciao
Alb

I'm with you there Alb, there is nothing bad about the Gene but the Behmor has that extra edge on taste. Timing is critical with the latter machine and requires a steeper learning curve but the effort is worth it. I need a lot more roasts under my belt before I can give a complete verdict but first impressions are very encouraging.

For Behmor owners I reccomend the Behmor Thing V2 (Google it). The American 110v profiles do not work over here but they can be modified for our 240/230v systems.

This is the sort of info I want guys! I was not interested so much in design faults either machine has (and I imagine they both do) but to try and understand why people claim that coffee roasted on the Beemer tastes better than on the Ali Baba

daveyb wrote:Beemer ...... Ali Baba

Well, I had hopeed to hear from loads of you guys on this one! Does this mean that not many have bought a Behmor, or that you are not yet able to give feedback or something else!

Trouble is Davey, we got our new toy and roasted too much. Now we must wait for our supply to run down before we can roast again.

Not complaining, just want lots of friends to call in for coffee.

Good answer motorman! I can wait!

Another happy Behmor owner chipping in -

I'm loving the volume i can roast, so easily, so evenly. And it seems to reward a touch of attention, too

And Behmor Thing is great...

Not complaining, just want lots of friends to call in for coffee.

My sentiments exactly! Am moving into a 6-room flat this week - the behmor will make things a lot easier...

daveyb wrote:Well, I had hopeed to hear from loads of you guys on this one! Does this mean that not many have bought a Behmor, or that you are not yet able to give feedback or something else!

Probably a bit of both. The Behmor is still new to the market. I suspect that many people still have a working Genecafe and will only "upgrade" when it dies. Personally I don't feel that the Behmor offers me much extra over the Genecafe, but, I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

I have a frend who has just bought one(yesterday), after testing his friends for a weekend or so. First impressions were awful in as much as the chaff collector catch fell off, and the whole chaff assembly rattles. But, he reckons that if you ditch the 1lb mullarkey in favour of lesser amounts, as a pure espresso drinker he found the flavours coming out with the increased roast time forced by dialling an incorrect weight in.
Over a weekend, he has decided to buy one, but to compliment his existing Gene rather than repolace it.
But, he has not done the 2 stage modifications to his Gene that a few are now doing which allow you to alter the wattage and therefore stretch the roast out. It will be interesting to compare the results of that test.
I drink 99.9% of my coffee with milk so lose the delicateness ofte sought after by the purist!

JulieJayne wrote:

daveyb wrote:Well, I had hopeed to hear from loads of you guys on this one! Does this mean that not many have bought a Behmor, or that you are not yet able to give feedback or something else!

Probably a bit of both. The Behmor is still new to the market. I suspect that many people still have a working Genecafe and will only "upgrade" when it dies. Personally I don't feel that the Behmor offers me much extra over the Genecafe, but, I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

You are welcome to try the machine in Lieren.
Ivo