Had It w/My Behmor

[JojoS]

I'm not a high volume roaster. I do a it a pound or so a week.

A heat gun, wok or dog bowl and the temp probe will be perfect for you provided you are well ventilated and willing to put up with the mess. If you like dark roasts without craters, this will be a good setup.

[Mass. Wine Guy]

I'm used to having a real roaster, so I guess I'll fix my Behmor.

[peter]

You'll be better off fixing the Behmor, at least from a resale standpoint; if you don't fix it, it's worth little; if you do fix it, you can sell it.  If you can fix a Behmor, you have all the skills needed to build an SC/TO.

[Mass. Wine Guy]

Maybe. Let's see if it works after I "fix" it.

[sea330]

Good luck with your repair job, if you’re not totally comfortable you might think about taking it to a appliance repair shop after the parts come in, they will have the skills to fix it. I know of many folks that love this method of roasting, not my cup of tea. I have modded up many SCTOs for family and friend’s. They never seem to fail, all I do is keep clean, I did have one that the bushings on the fan motor started making noise, had to tear it apart and clean works great. My 5 year old one heating element seems to  be acting a little funny,  looking to replacing or making  one, don’t think parts for these Galloping Gourmet turbo ovens are available.

[donn]

If you can fix a Behmor, you have all the skills needed to build an SC/TO.

?  It has been a while, but I think I remember something about mating the toaster oven to the Stir Crazy lid, that didn't sound like anything you'd likely encounter replace a board in a Chinese convection oven or whatever the Behmor is.

I concur with the real roaster sentiment, vs. dog bowl - kind of surprised to see the dog bowl thing come up, as my impression was that the heat gun guys have moved on to other things.  But if "real" means it's an electric appliance with a circuit board, then ... too bad for you.  I gave up on that a long time ago.  US house current is not meant for roasting a pound of coffee at a time, and the appliances don't seem to be as robust as they are when made in the millions for popping popcorn etc. (and used as intended.)  But if the SC/TO is exceptionally efficient with heat but doesn't run too far over its design temperature, that does sound interesting.

[peter]

If you can fix a Behmor, you have all the skills needed to build an SC/TO.

?  It has been a while, but I think I remember something about mating the toaster oven to the Stir Crazy lid, that didn't sound like anything you'd likely encounter replace a board in a Chinese convection oven or whatever the Behmor is.

I concur with the real roaster sentiment, vs. dog bowl - kind of surprised to see the dog bowl thing come up, as my impression was that the heat gun guys have moved on to other things.  But if "real" means it's an electric appliance with a circuit board, then ... too bad for you.  I gave up on that a long time ago.  US house current is not meant for roasting a pound of coffee at a time, and the appliances don't seem to be as robust as they are when made in the millions for popping popcorn etc. (and used as intended.)  But if the SC/TO is exceptionally efficient with heat but doesn't run too far over its design temperature, that does sound interesting.

It's really nothing more than placing the TO top on the SC bottom.  The 'difficulty' comes if/when you decide to disable the SC heating element or put a switch on it, adding a spacer between the top and bottom, and modding the stirring arm.  It's a better roaster if you do those three things, but they're not necessarily necessary.

The TO has plenty of power for larger batches, and the limitation is in the SC in that it could use a faster motor for better agitation and heat transfer.

[sea330]

I only have about $150.00 into my SCTO setup, that's including a 60 rpm motor, a fabricated aluminium drive coupling. for the stir arm's I just stacked two stock arms that came with the stir crazy's  Very happy with the results, can do 1 pound easy. Normally I only do 12 or 13 oz at a time for personal consumption. I get nice even roasts with the higher rpms.

I have read on this site and coffee forum site that circuit boards fail allot on the Behmor roasters, I wonder if they have inadequate cooling on the electronics, don't now anything about this roasting system just curious.   

[Mass. Wine Guy]

If you can fix a Behmor, you have all the skills needed to build an SC/TO.

But if "real" means it's an electric appliance with a circuit board, then ... too bad for you.

Gee, how do I interpret this prosaic gem? Too bad that I can't a) spend more on a "real" roaster, or b) build my own gas-fired machine? Not all of us have the luxury or skills to do this.

I'm going to open up my roaster, look for loose connections and, if necessary, replace the board. But next time this happens, the Behmor goes.

[Ascholten]

US house current can easily roast 1 Lb of coffee at a time if it's applied properly.   US house current is also 240 volts, that can roast a few KG at a time in the Artisan.  Before you go making general statements, might want to run it through an accuracy filter first.

FWIW a Behmor 'could' easily do a pound but the UL listing qualifications is what I believe are killing it in the way it has to be designed.  It has plenty of potential of putting the proper heat into the beans IF it didn't' play the on / off bullshit with the temp once it gets up there.  See thats the problem, if you need to control the heat, lower the input but KEEP ADDING it,  don't just turn it off, that does not do a good job of it, and can stall a crack a bit IMO.  Once beans start cracking they need to keep having heat added to them to push the crack along.  Turning off the element and letting the latent heat try to coast them along does no favors really.

I have one that I modded, they are easy to PID, Varying the voltage can be cumbersome but you can add PWM to control the heat input if you need et al.  If you really want to get stupid, you can get a little PLC for pretty cheap and custom a profile onto it.  Siemens makes a few, you can get old SLC500's pretty cheap now, just to name a few.  Ladder Logic is not that hard to master.  Add a few K rtd inputs, an Ohmega PID and you are set.  if you need just on off get a yokogawa 330M it has 3 or 4 channels on it.  If you really want to nerd it out, PLC / VFD / the drum motor and fan motor, they sell fractional HP small motors you can do that with easily.  Vary your rotational speed, or your fan speed.  I go with fan speed for temp control along with power to elements.  Ok Ok this getting far too nerdy for most folks but my point is, even 120 vac can EASILY roast a pound of coffee IF it is used properly.

A standard outlet is 15 A  kitchen outlets at times are 20A    15 amps is 1800 watts, lets keep a few for the motors and crap and you can still put 1500 to 1600 watts of heat into your beans.  That's an ass ton of heat there.

I am not going to get into details how to 'trick out' a Behmor because I do not want to be held responsible for your mishaps if you are not tech / electric savvy.  I don't need you blaming me for burning your house down because you bypassed a safety, or set it up on a different system and did it wrong.

120 VAC is plenty of power for the power savvy.

Oh and I have solar panels too.  I have used my inverter to vary the voltage to the unit, as controlled by a PLC via a network link. (its the nerd thing again)  OR you could just run the DC up and down and power your elements with straight DC too.  On a 120 DC system, you can easily swing it up or down 20 volts to work with.   Start low, work your way up, a lot more power in DC than AC... think RMS.

Ill shut up now

Aaron

[donn]

Too bad that I can't a) spend more on a "real" roaster, or b) build my own gas-fired machine? Not all of us have the luxury or skills to do this.

No skills required, really.  Common propane grill, rotisserie spit, mail order drum, full propane tank, and let's roast.  In theory the drum could manage 5 lbs, but 1 is enough for my purposes.  Oh yeah, box fan and screen tray for cooling.

I burned through a handful of popcorn poppers, and some Hearthware thing with a fancy glass chamber but fragile electronics.  I've read the tedious recital of Alpenröst failures, read about issues with the Hottop involving voltage drops in house current.  Aaron is no doubt right that in principle, ordinary house current can build up enough heat to roast large amounts of coffee, but between design issues around how to actually do that and the small production cottage industry electronics, it seems to me that the electric roaster is for someone who really for whatever reason can't swing a gas grill.  Weather is one of the obvious reasons, of course, as it's an outdoor thing.

[hankua]

Or just buy a new Behmor, will adjustable heat function. 

[Mass. Wine Guy]

I guess I will replace the circuot board and upgrade the control panel. Whenever the roaster craps out next, I'll get something better. Very frustrating.

[Mass. Wine Guy]

I think I'm giving up on home roasting. The Behmor sucks due to its overly delicate wiring. Even the Hottop needs expensive modifications to really do the job well.

If I spend another minute trying to disconnect all the wires from the Behmor circuit board I'm going to drown myself. I think it must be a practical joke: Glue the clips in and tell owners that using a small flathead screwdriver will release them. I am to to the term "handy" what oil is to water. Maybe my electrician can help.

Thanks guys. I have a date with a few bottles of choice alcohol.

[Ascholten]

Tell you what you do.
Bring it to your electrician and say, "Here, I need this done if you get this thing working Ill roast you a few pounds of fine coffee"   Give him a cup pre made or a small bag of grounds to entice him and it's a done deal

Aaron