Fixing a Hole in Behmor Drum

[Mass. Wine Guy]

One of the solid metal separators inside my Behmor drum came off, leaving a very small hole. Although not a ton of beans fall through, I'd like it better if I didn't lose any.

Is there an easy way to repair this hole instead of buying a new drum?

Thanks.

[roastingnerd]

I bought some silicone rubber stoppers to replace the expensive rubber bumpers on my Gene Café roaster flappers.  The small end is about 1/8 inch and the large end is about 1/4 inch.  They are about an inch long.  Could you jam one from the inside of your Behmor to the outside?  if you think it would work I'll send you one if you give me your address in a PM.

[roastingnerd]

I don't know why my previous response is not showing in your thread.  I offered to send you a high temperature silicone rubber stopper that is 1/8"X1/4" by 1 inch long.  I bought some for my Gene Café roaster.  You can find them on amazon.com by searching for:  50 Piece 1/8" X 1/4" High Temp Silicone Rubber Tapered Plug Kit Powder Coating Custom Painting Supplies.  You can send me a PM if you would like me to mail one.

[Ascholten]

Your response is showing up.
Check your browser to make sure you have it to 'refresh the page' every time it reloads and not just use cached data.  Sometimes that can be a culprit when your stuff seems to be acting odd in forums etc.

Aaron

[roastingnerd]

Thanks, I reset it.

[CrackedBean]

I had the same problem where a few of the metal fins started to pull away from the mesh, leaving a hole big enough to let beans fall through. The fins had not totally broken off so I took a lightweight cotter pin (I had a big assortment leftover from an earlier project) and used it like a piece of metal thread. I was able to bend it sideways just enough to then bend it forwards and use the straight arms to go up and back under the foot of the fin/separator. I was imaging that pushing the pin inward would give the pin some extra spring to hold it in place, though in retrospect I believe it was simply mesh cage which was providing the downward force to keep the fin pushed in place. The cotter pin was stiff enough and long enough to bridge the gap over the foot and back into/under non-broken mesh to keep things in place. I expected I would eventually need to take it to a repair shop for tack welding or get a replacement drum, but this fix has held up for more than a hundred roasts.

One other tip is to never rotate the the drum in the opposite direction as the machine does in operation. I think I helped cause the problem because of loading up a pound of green beans and then rotating quickly back and forth so that the dust or any broken beans will fall out before inserting into the roaster. Even though I think the manufacturing process should have been more robust, I believe this contributed to the failure by a quick backward rotation, due to the way the fins are designed and attached to the thin wire mesh.

[Ascholten]

 Im glad you figured out a way to fix it there.  The Behmor used to be built like a little tank.  Now, sadly, the quality has gone way down  hill.  If the thing is built poorly enough that shaking the beans around a bit is enough to break it, well, that's just sad.  Just another fine example of a product made in China for the lowest possible price.

Aaron

[Mass. Wine Guy]

Well said, Aaron. The new basket works well. We'll have to wait to see how durable it is.

[CrackedBean]

I will defend Behmor to some extent while also agreeing that the machine and drum could be constructed better and built with better tolerances. Defend them in that they have built a fairly low retail cost roaster that can more than pay for itself over its lifetime. Allowing one to explore the boarder world of coffee origins as offered though this club. Without them I would not be home roasting as I did not have the time/patience for more basic methods like a poppery or heat gun, and I was not willing to spend more for something like a Hottop when starting out.

When my drum failed I took a careful look and surmised that it was due to manufacturing imperfections as well as design short comings. Imperfection in that depending on where fins get placed within the drum there could be slightly more or less of the mesh supporting their feet. And at spots where the mesh is wrapped over the top of the internal wire structural frame there was a tendency for the mesh to not be as flat (or to be more precise I found one spot where there appeared to be a slight dimple; like might happen if the mesh wrapping the top half of the cylinder was pulled more tautly than the part covering the lower half). Both of those conditions seemed to be where my fins failed.  I think this points to a larger design shortcoming since there are bound to be some small imperfections for such a human labor intensive job as assembling the drum. That to address this problem Behmor should either make the feet of the fins larger and/or make them such that the feet are both behind and in front of the fin, so that they are stronger. They are made from a piece of sheet metal so it should be an easy enhancement to make. 

Borrowed this picture to show the feet of the fins. My drum failed after I filled it with 1 pound of coffee and while holding with two hands at either end of the drum shaking it vigorously to remove dust from an especially dusty coffee before roasting. I am not sure why that coffee was was so unclean, but that did generate a much higher force than normal and in the opposite direction from how the drum is typically used. I could believe that every shake over then dozens of roasts prior to the failure was working the fin against the wire mesh, almost like bending a paper clip back and forth until metal fatigue causes it to break. But I also think some of this could be expected from normal handling and the drum should not be so fragile.

[Ascholten]

I have had a Behmor since they came out essentially, and  can tell you, sadly they have turned into garbage.  The customer service / response is pretty garbage too, and again, never used to be that way.  Yes it will allow you to explore the world of coffee brewing , but will also taint it with its problems.  There are a slew of other problems with these units as well, it isn't just the mesh.  For someone who is a tinkerer such as yourself, fixing  the drum was no problem, in fact,  probably a fun challenge.  For someone who is not mechanically inclined, or living in limited space, it's a big hassle that they just spent  the better part of 300 dollars on.  It 's one of  those things where you don' t really see how problematic it is, until you move onto something better then go wow, how / why did I put up with that  garbage all these years.

Aaron

[roastingnerd]

I have never used a Behmore roaster but I have purchased their beans and was very happy with the responses I got.  That was several years ago and may have changed too.  The reason people get into this business is usually their home roasting with whatever equipment is out there.  Of course there must be a profit too to keep it going at their chosen price point.  I have had two Iroasts and a GeneCafe and all of them have had built-in problems.  The I roasts gave me about 1 year per $100 investment.  I liked the coffee they made but their demise shows that the chosen price point was too low.  The Gene is still going but has had operational problems too.  I believe that  may be what is now going on at Behmore.

[Ascholten]

 RN, I have a few I roasts as well and loved them.  They were not machines for a lot of roasting though, a few roasts a week is all they claimed to handle.  The biggest problem with them seemed to be the gasket on top getting loose and top wanting to pop off, or fan issues where it would get even louder, almost like it was rubbing on something.  I actually used one of them the other day for nostalgic purposes and wow  the memory flashbacks, and yes the coffee was good too!

Many years ago, yes, Behmor had a decent product and good customer service.  Not anymore I don' t believe.  Then again, they built their rep, perhaps now it's time to ride the wave down and cash in, who knows.  Maybe they just don't care any more, maybe  they know of their problems but figure that there are enough new people coming into the roasting world, that keeping the old ones happy is not important enough to address the problems.  Maybe their mentality is, it's a 300 dollar roaster, you get what you pay for, you want something better, get a hot top, only  they can answer that.

Don't get me wrong, I used to love the B roaster, I had and used one for years, but after going through a number of them,  the problems just got more and more with them, the quality went down, and reading forums, this one and several others where bad reviews are not  censored out (another favorite game many of them play), I seen that I was not the only person having these very same issues.

You are correct in  that every roaster has it's own issues, but when the issue causes you to kill a batch of beans because the thing shut down half way  through, and there isn't a 'quick fix for it' that in my opinion, becomes unacceptable.  It becomes even more unacceptable if you happened to be roasting a more expensive bean and that little 'unannounced feature', just cost you 15 dollars.

Aaron

[kelppaddy]

With the Behmors I go back to before they were even on the market.  I remember going to Joe's home and watching him roast on a prototype in his kitchen and being impressed with what I saw.  Since that time I have had seven of them and done thousands of roasts.  Two of them did die prematurely and one I sent to another member to experiment with.  I still have three that I roast with, the latest being a plus model.  This one and the one I purchased before it have been my favorites, both can roast a full pound of greens to 2C.  It's been my experience that the early ones seemed to last forever, a couple of the middle ones were so-so and the last two have been the best yet.

kp