I've been roasting with the Behmor now the last 3 days since it arrived. I can tell already that this roaster will help me become a better roaster.
After two outside break-in sessions, I roasted up 1/2lb P2 OFT Timor Maubese. Nice, even roast. There was minimal chaff; 3/4 was in the chaff tray with little collections in the back corners of the roaster. I still detected the plastic smell during the roast, so I dumped these over the fence to the birds (did you know that wild turkeys will eat roasted coffee beans??).
The next roast was 1.2lb Rwanda Bufcafe Gkongoro Bourbon - I wanted to go darker so I tried 1/2 P3 B (I think - doing this from memory). 1st crack seemed to come at the end of the cycle, so I added a little more time to the cycle. 2nd came soon after that so I hit cool - gotta watch extending the roast time. I'm drinking this right now - it is deep and rich and wonderful.
I went ahead and did a cleaning cycle outside again since I could still smell electronics. After this, I set the roaster on top of the stove and hit the downdraft. I tried some of the '06 Hacienda La Esmeralda Geisha using a lighter profile but more weight - 1lb P2 A. At around 9 mins, the smoke alarms went off. I opened the windows and deck doors, but I'm afraid that the kitchen smoke alarm is going to pick up any stray smoke and scream. I added a little more time to the roast to take it what I think is mid-way between 1st and 2nd crack.
I wanted to roast IDIDO MISTY VALLEY Grade 1 FT Organic Yirgacheffe, because I have a lot of Ethiopians. I did this outside on the deck. The first was 1lb P3 (I think I like this profile best), C (I think - I should be taking notes!!). First crack came just at the end of the cycle - I added a few more seconds until I heard 1st end. The roast looked good and even - not typical for my IMV roasts, and smelled very good (this is vintage BW's IMV that is still sooooo goooood). There is a good deal of chaff in the tray, a few shakers (kinda of interesting that these fell out and stayed pale) and a few burned beans in the bottom and caught in the drum. I did read the manual about high-chaff coffees. I thought I'd roast another IMV 1lb'er, and this time I used 1lb P3 D because I wanted to go a little darker. Everything progressed as before, but this time after 1st crack had finished, 10-12 seconds later 2nd started. I hit cool, but could already see and hear that the roast was coasting into a rolling second - fast. So I opened the door a bit (I know, I can hear you all saying DON'T DO THAT) and the chaff that was collected on the corners of the tray smoked and burned to ash. After the cool down, the roast looks OK - just a bit darker and uneven. The finish on the chaff collector is a bit marred, but overall, no damage to any part of the roaster, but I will be really careful of "D" in the future, and whatever you do, don't leave the roaster unattended. I haven't - there are noseprints on the viewing window of mine, but I find it interesting how quickly you can go from crack1 to crack2. In all the roasting I've done in poppers and SC/CO's I haven't had it ramp up like this, but I think this is a good thing; I've never had a great degree of controlled temp. like the Behmor has.
So this would be my first roaster fire - tiny and controlled as it was on the little piles of chaff in the corners. So this leads me to a question: could the chaff collector somehow spread the chaff out more evenly so it doesn't pile up in the corners? Maybe as it drops out of the drum onto the collector, there could be separators in parallel, like little trays that would help even the distribution of the chaff. Would this impact the design of the airflow in some way?
Overall, I'm very satisified with the Behmor. I will have to find a way to roast inside since this is one of the reasons I wanted one, and the only draft fan I have is a downdraft oven, and it looks like the exhaust on the Behmor vents up. That would be another design consideration or modification, not a high priority but something to consider.
Thank you Joe for a great product!
Woody