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PostPosted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 12:59 pm
by GreenBean
It is great to hear that the chemo is over with. I hope the results are everything you could wish for and your taste buds soon return to normal. Enjoy the roasting and, hopefully, the drinking. You certainly deserve a treat after the last six months.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 6:19 pm
by motoman
My sister gave me some roasted bean that were purchased by mistake. "You will love them" she said, "they are vanilla flavour. They tasted more like Bovril and are now fertilising my tomatoes.

Good luck now that the Chemo is finished, you may not get your hair back but I am sure your good taste will influence your buds soon.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:55 pm
by HughF
I am still roasting two or three 227/250 gram batches per week (two for filter drinking each week, one for espresso every 2 weeks) in my KN8828-P HotTop.
It was bought 9 years ago from HB and has needed one new heating element for £30 and one new screen and brain for £200 (ouch!). I had to buy all these from HotTop themselves via a bank transfer into their UK bank account.
Since the brain swap it now beeps at 190 degrees Celsius which is a nuisance because it will dump the beans into the cooling tray if the right button is not pressed inside a few seconds. Needless to say the WRONG button is lit up in green and the right button is lit up in red!

Cheers,
Hugh

PostPosted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:45 am
by GreenBean
It is good to hear that you are still roasting. The new "enhanced safety features" do take some getting used to. I am always present whilst roasting so this extra step does not add to my safety and I prefer to roast using an old control panel that does not have this feature.

I guess it is understandable that manufacturers attempt to protect themselves from litigation from people who operate their equipment in a dangerous way. I am sure we all understand that this is particularly important for coffee roasters that are inherently dangerous as they have to operate at close to the auto ignition temperature of beans and chaff. Unfortunately, such attempts to make something foolproof seem to invariably make them less user friendly. Douglas Adams has made an interesting observation that hints at where this is going:

    “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”
    ― Douglas Adams

PostPosted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:07 pm
by HughF
Our sitting room and kitchen form an "L" (the roaster is used under the cooker hood) and I am often in the kitchen during the roast but if not, I am in the sitting room with the sound of the TV or whatever else turned down and that door wide open in between.
I wish they had made the alert temperature 200 degrees instead of 190 then I could get in there just before first crack's start.

I used to nudge the target temperature down a bit during first crack (period 6 of 7) but I have done this less lately so I mainly worry about picking the time to end the roast.

Does anyone have a source for a tried and tested alternative rear filter material for the HotTop as mentioned above please? (Does it work for top filters as well?)
I have a few rear and a couple of top filters left but I have to buy them from sweetmarias.com or mess about with HotTop's banking arrangements in the UK. If I combine a USA sweetmarias purchase of HT filters with green coffee it's tricky as the greens are not subject to VAT at UK Customs but the filters are.

Cheers,

Hugh

PostPosted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:52 pm
by GreenBean
HughF wrote:….Does anyone have a source for a tried and tested alternative rear filter material for the HotTop as mentioned above please? (Does it work for top filters as well?)….

I have used cooker hood grease filter material for the rear filter for several years and it works very well with a pressure drop similar to the original filters.

I cut the material to size to fit into the plastic cage of the Hottop rear filter. In the past the material I purchased was rather thin and I used two thicknesses. More recently I have obtained some thicker material and I use one thickness of this. I use each for about 12-16 roasts then replace with new (reusing the original filter cage).

The material is readily available from many sources including Ebay and Amazon.

I would not use this material for the top filter as it is subject to much higher temperatures.

PostPosted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:58 pm
by HughF
Thanks very much GreenBean, I will definitely go for some of this.

Cheers,

Hugh

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 10:05 pm
by zix
GreenBean wrote:It is good to hear that you still enjoy roasting, zix. I do not have the skills to get a good roast from a hot air gun / bowl but am very impressed by the people who do. 8)


Hah, the reason might also be that I don't expect as much from my roasts, GreenBean... or maybe I just can't taste the difference :)

PostPosted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 4:59 pm
by nickr
I'm still roasting on my Gene Cafe - approx 7 years old. Every time I use it a appreciate its utterly brilliant design. When it eventually dies, I will buy another in a heart beat.

PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:39 am
by GreenBean
Hi Nick, it is good to see you around here :D and to know that you are still enjoying the Gene Cafe.

PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 9:06 am
by sicinius
Still using my Behmor roasting about 1lb a week, and still getting good results. I fret about all the negative things people say about Behmors but I check all is well by buying 250g of the same beans roasted by Hasbean every now and then and am still happy. There's not often a truly perceptible difference, at least according to my wife, whose palate for wine has proved to be better than my own.

PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 9:39 am
by bruceb
One of my sons has been using a Behmor for the last months and the only criticisms he has are about the lack of cooling and the difficulty in achieving good dark roasts. People have so many opinions about things that it's probably best to just consider your own (and your wife's) taste and ignore all the rest.

PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 9:28 pm
by zix
The Behmor is fine. Maybe not so adventurous, but fine.
If you want a better starting point for dark roasts, try putting in 10V lower value for the tension (i.e. 230V if you know you are on 240). I find that this setting combined with putting in around 300g and pushing the 1lb button, then P2, "C" and pushing "+" until I reach the max roasting time gives me enough headroom for roasting dark on most beans.

PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 9:32 am
by sicinius
I find that P1 maxed out on the Behmor will turn 1/2lb of anything into carbon but I'm a just-into-second-crack man myself. Roasting darker, I think you lose more than you gain with the beans we like.

ceramic pot on stove

PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:48 am
by athkaptah
I have no roasting machine however I though about using one.
Six years ago I started using a frying pan, but these days I roast the beans on the stove in a ceramic pot.
Every week I roast my portion.

Is there anyone else, or would it be far better to use a roasting machine ?

I roast both the peeled beans, as I buy them over here in the netherlands, and other times I roast unpeeled beans, as I but them on foreign markets.