Hi All -- some feedback after all the hours of tips and advice you gave
I purchased a Gene Cafe (GC) which is ventable (new word) and created a large swath of space on (pushed a lot of stuff over and/or off of) my desk which is situated in front of my only leaky window and proceeded to roast there. All is well as any smoke and roasting smells are vented or dissipate through that old leaky window.
The PROBLEM with this location is that it's winter in NYC (early spring/late fall if you live in Montana, Michigan, Minn or well you catch my drift) and heating the GC and holding that temp are difficult even with preheating. My roasting times closed in on 20 mins. Coffee was drinkable, no more. I even built a cardboard enclosure for the unit but to no avail. It's cold and that area leaks. My loft bed is directly above the roaster and if I don't turn on the electric heater which I am loath to do I sleep in a woolen hat and three blankets one of which is down. I like sleeping like this.
My point is that it's cold around that GC.
What to do?
I moved the roaster to the kitchen where as it turns out the drain in my kitchen sink is 3" in diameter. I placed the aluminum duct over the drain and ran the water creating a filter and smoke barrier. Wow I can't get over myself, what ingenuity! The PROBLEM here was that I created a vacuum and choked off the air intake cutting the heat sensors off and never roasting well. S**t what's a guy got to do to roast a 1/2 lb of coffee around here?
I returned to my original idea of roasting in the kitchen and just venting out into the apt (which writing this is also a form of). As it turns out there is very little, almost none, smoke before 2C. So there is no smoke problem. Roasting smells with a fan on dissipate almost immediately and my dog isn't bothered at all, anyway. He my even like it for all I know.
Now I'm roasting and that's that.
What I am learning is that it's hard to mess up roasting with the GC. Things happen slowly as compared to my FreshRoast SR 500 and it's easy to stop. There are so many widely different roasting profiles out there and they all seem to do ok. The idea being to get the most out of the machine. There is a couple of discussions on the homeroasters forum about the heating sensors and the mechanics of the GC. Exactly how it works. One fellow drilled some holes and inserted 2 probes in an attempt to come closer to measuring BMT. He hooked this up to his computer program and found some interesting things. One of which was he wasn't exactly getting BMT but it's close.
I find the unit is VERY sensitive to amperage and some profiles do better for me than others. The best starting point for me was the profiles from the venerable BoldJava if he's a gentleman and a scholar I don't know but he loves his coffee (and fried fish).
I find that with my unit, they all differ some, and with my amperage I like to pre-heat to 482* and estop and place the coffee beans in the drum then restart keeping the temp to 482*.
When I reach 470 - 474 I leave the temp at that point until I hear 1C. Then I lower to 445* and by the time it reaches there (I wait until about 60 secs has passed) I estop again dump the beans into a colander, replace the drum, reset the unit for cooling, then place the colander with another on top to catch to keep any stray chaff on the fan. A total of 90+ secs pass from the time I hear 1C to when those beans are cool. I cruise into City+ with ease.
With this profile (using hi grown beans) I reach yellow in about 5 mins and 1C in another 6+ mins.
Hearing 1C with the GC is a topic unto itself. One gets better at it with time. Reaching 1C within 10 -12 mins causes an exothermic explosion which is easier to hear than a longer wait for 1C.
Some folks warm the beans at 300* for 5 mins before raising the temp. Others preheat to 350 then insert the beans and raise the temp immediately. I find that whichever profile I employ I like to reach yellow in about 4-5 mins and then race to 1C which with the GC is slow. The heater in the GC is either on or off. When it reaches the desired temp it turns itself off, servoing around the set temp. Each unit will servo slightly differently. Mechanically the heater is not that sensitive about a degree or three. It works something along the order of a heat gun. Anyway, I have gotten excellent results because of the help and association with you'all and I am grateful.
If you don't hear 1C with the GC not to worry. Sight and smell will give you a very good jumping off point. By this I mean the color and shape of the bean, the smell of the roast and watching for when the chaff leaves off. It's hard to muck it up. For me the thing of it is to stretch the time between 1C and 2C and develop all that goodness.
I see my pictures aren't loading. If an administrator can give me some help i will load a few pictures so that y'all can see the different set-ups.
