I uttered that original epithet yesterday. I don't think Mr. Behmor earned the moniker, but that roaster sure did. Not a fan. I used one right around the time they came out for a couple of weeks, and was not happy. My buddy bought it and said, "Here, you got plenty of coffee - figure out how I'm supposed to use this!" It sounded great- in theory! The lack of power was my biggest gripe - there were options that really weren't options as to roast 'profiles'. But after playing around with it for awhile, it became apparent that the device pretty much always needed to be set on the one setting (P1B1? I can't remember now...) and the batch really had to be very close to 1# for an even roast. But even then it took too long, the roast curve was bumpy, and quite often first crack would come about too late in a long process, and would result in underdeveloped coffee. At the time, the drum itself was problematic, this has been fixed with a smaller mesh drum. The chaff system easily clogged. The cooling mechanism was nowhere near sufficient, resulting in many of your precious essential oils baking away afterwards as it took 7+ minutes to cool to below 100°F. For the sake of safety, the device was not even allowed to be programmed to run for the length of time it needed to most of the time, so buttons (that didn't always respond immediately or properly) had to be pressed to "extend" the roast - then you had to hope it did. You couldn't see what was happening very well, either. And the smoke suppression system actually hindered one of a roaster's most valuable senses in determining where the roast was - what it smelled like! The problems with insufficient voltage were another drawback - most folks that are serious about this roaster eventually began to use power monitors/modifiers (killawat, variac, transformer, etc.) to keep it from choking due to power supply issues.
For years I used to hear from people that used them to roast coffee that I supplied that were not getting the flavors that others were out of those beans, and would be erroneously blaming the beans. I do think that that roaster can be used successfully, but it really takes some ingenuity and skill as well as a modified process to make it work passably, and many people that are enamored by the device really are wanting something that they can just put beans into, press a button or two, and magically pull out the finished product with no real input/feedback during the process. Hence the 'Easy Bake' comparison - it does have a couple of parallels...
For the record, I am not a big fan of the Genecafe either, for some of the same reasons. ...and there definitely are some areas where a 1600 has positives, such as the catalytic smoke suppressor. The thing that surprises me the most is that after 7 years or so that nobody has really taken the next successful step forward in the evolution of this type of device. There are a billion worker bees in China that would just love to mass produce these so they could be obtained at your local Target for $149 next Christmas (ensuring that everyone gives their Keurig 2.0s to Goodwill, replaces their previous brewing device, and keeps the disposable planned obsolescence consumerist culture rolling on full throttle - booyah!).
WWBWD?
Increase the power, and add another element and possibly some insulation to allow for a steeper curve early in the roast. Give the device a 20A plug and maybe an internal transformer to guarantee the oomph to power that extra heat and give it stable control - . Dramatically increase fan power, and possibly include an ancillary cooler. With additional heating capability, and additional cooling capability, the actual bean temperature profile might 'arc' properly, rather than being nearly linear (with stalling dips) and not getting sufficient post first crack development time. Add a USB interface, so that the roast could be easily monitored, recorded, and even controlled from a notebook or tablet. There should probably also be some kind of ingenious bean temperature sensing device, not sure what would best happen there... Anyway, I'm not an engineer, and probably don't see the rationale for why some of this was done the way it was done, but I am convinced that there are steps that could be taken to improve this right out of my 'not recommended' zone and into the thumbs up range.
