After breaking mine in with two dry run empty basket roasts, (outdoors because the first try stunk up the house from machine grease burning off ) I brought it into a shed that I store my coffee in. It's cool in there but not outdoors cold, and there's a good vent fan in the ceiling. My first real roast was 1/2 lb of a nice Nicaraguan, and I pressed 1/2, start (P1).
Before long I noticed that some beams were falling out of the basket. Those beans started popping ahead of the rest, which might confuse a newby roaster. They also made a dark smoke which leaked, a bit, from the seal around the window. No biggy. First crack started with 6 minutes left on the timer so I took off 60 seconds and watched carefully. I hit cool with a minute still showing on the timer, opened the door soon after that and after two minutes stopped the machine and finished cooling the beans in a colander. There was enough smoke to set off the smoke alarm in the shed so I disconnected that. Nice even roast, but Full City instead of the City roast I'd hoped for. Tastes fine as I sip it right now.
20 burnt beans were in the chaff collector, and most of them not tiny beans. I put another 1/2 lb. of the same greens in the basket, adding an extra handful to slow the roast better, and I rolled the basket around and shook it to see where the beans were falling out. Some fell out that I couldn't fit back in through the mesh. Not even close. Odd... It took a minute or two of looking very closely but I found a break in the fine mesh. Any ideas on how to fix that, anyone? I'm afraid to try and solder it, the wire is so thin. I'll look around for some fine ss wire around the place. Should be some somewhere.
I bent the broken wire back to temporarily close the gap and did the second roast, with the extra handful over 1/2 lb, cooled the room to about 50 degrees F, and did P1 again. This time the roast went slower and I opened the door a little, every 10 seconds or so for a couple of secs,as first crack got rolling, and hit cool with only 30 seconds left on timer. Perfect looking city roast this time. Some beans did fall out of the basket but, strangely, this time most didn't burn, and in fact stayed green on the floor of the chaff collector.
The Behmore does a nice roast. I'm glad to have it for roasting the 1/2 lb samples I get from importers. The basket is quite delicate, be careful not to ever drop it. The little squeak mine has isn't very loud, I'll be ok with that if it doesn't get louder.
I'll be roasting some other greens and doing some 1 lb roasts later today.
Saludos,
Charly
