Original Behmor 1600 Roaster Troubleshooting

[pgde]

HI All:

I have one of the original Behmor 1600 roasters which is close to 7-8 years old. Never had a problem with it until recently. All of a sudden, it is not roasting at the times I am used to -- it takes a lot longer in all presets. I got out my Kill-A-Watt and it is getting 120.6 volts @ 60 hz and when on P1, it is drawing between 910-925 watts. So here are my questions:

1. Does anybody know what the draw is supposed to be at full heat? I had assumed it would be closer to 1500 watts.
2. Do you think I need to replace the heating elements?
3. I see on their site, I can buy replacements. Has anybody tried replacing the elements and if so, it is difficult to do?

Any other insights/comments/suggestions would be welcome!

Many thanks!

Peter (the other Peter)

[Ascholten]

It needs new heating elements, they DO wear out and if you got that much out of them, you did well.

They draw I want to say around 1100 watts?  I don't remember mine drawing a full 1500 ish that I can remember but that still seems a bit low.

The quartz lamps don't work exactly the same way that a nichrome heating wire would, so the watts does not tell the entire story there but I can almost guarantee the elements are just very weak now, it's how they age / eventually die.

Aaron

[pgde]

Thanks Aaron -- that validates my conclusion also. I hope they aren't hard to install. Will talk to Tech Support on Monday.

Regards,

P.

[Ascholten]

Good luck with the tech support.  My experiences with getting replies to anything from them are rather ...non existent, hence one of the reasons I am so critical of them.

From what I remember it should not be too horrible if you are even minimally mechanically inclined, you pull a side off and they slide in / out.  Hopefully their tech support can be more helpful.

I did a PooTube search and while they had several other videos on a bunch of other stuff, I did not see one on element replacement.
Please let us know how it goes.
Aaron

[slim]

Peter - I was having the same problem you're describing on my older behmor - my roasts weren't completing.  In short, while I thought I was keeping it clean, I was missing the vent holes on the underside of the top of the roast chamber, just to the side of the light. I gave it a good scrub with a wire brush, a shot of citrus degreaser and it started roasting again just like when it was new.

Worth checking out and much easier / faster than replacing the heating elements.

Jim

[pgde]

Thanks for the suggestion! Will check it out.

Regards,

P.

[pgde]

Just an update -- both the heating element and afterburner are on backorder (and have been since my original post). Hopefully they will be in stock in early November.....

[CrackedBean]

I first read this post and checked availability a couple of weeks ago (Feb 2021) and there were no Quartz Elements in stock on the Behmor website.  Which made me wonder have they been out of stock this whole time??  I do not know about the availability in late 2020 but now (March 2021) they are back in stock.

[vnahmias]

A few years ago, I noticed my roasting times were a lot longer on my Behmor 1600 plus. The problem was the afterburner. You can tell if it's working by looking for a orangish glow on the top of your chaff tray once the fan and afterburner kicks in.  If you don’t see it the afterburner is probably burned out. You can replace it yourself if you can get the part from Behmor. Once I replaced it my roasting times returned to normal.

Good luck.

[Ascholten]

I am not an expert on the Behmor, though have used them for many years.  I think the afterburner is just to reduce smoke and bad aroma's.  I don't believe it has anything to do with the roast time or roast profile really.   The heat in your beans comes from the quartz lamps NOT the afterburner.

If you are having issues there, might want to check cleanliness, and voltage coming in, and of course loose connections, and age of lamps will play into it too.   Again, Id not point to the afterburners as a cause for increased roast times, unless you have a rather starved power outlet and the couple 100 of watts or so it pulls is dragging your voltage down.  Without knowing a thing about your situational wiring etc,  older homes with aluminum wire can have these issues if stuff gets loose over time.

Check voltages when the thing is running full bore.  do a clean out run and see what volts are at.

Aaron