Behmore or Oven

[ianh]

Hi,

I am searched around the site and cannot find a comparison on the Behmore 1600 Plus and a traditional oven. The reason I am looking for such a comparision is because I have recently moved into a new place and the oven is absolute crap. The temp is always 50-90F above the indicated turn dial temp. I have only roasted a few batches and each time I have to literally sit by the oven, alternating between turning it on and off and opening the door to vent it. This is the only way I can keep the temperature within a 20F range.

So I am looking for another option. It is a rental unit so I do not want to buy an oven or hack up the current one. The only thing I can seem to find is the Behmore 1600 PLUS. It looks really nice, priced a little high for me, but overall looks like a good machine. My only problem with it is I do not know the roasting temperatures! So evenually when I have a commerical space I will not be able to accurately transfer my roasting times into a bigger capicity. Maybe I am wrong about this?



Thoughts? Is it worth the money for a Behmore and control over temp? or should I just sit by the oven? Any thoughts?

[Ben]

Hi Ian. The Behmor plus is a great little roaster. I use it for test roasts while I'm developing a new origin.

Regarding temperatures, you could easily just stick a thermocouple in the door. Or, you could hack one or two in to measure environment temp and bean temp. I found a couple discussions about this on some coffee forums and did this to my Behmor. You can see a couple photos here (last 3 in the album):

www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.125991854108467.9786.124491320925187&type=3

On a side note, it's probably impossible to directly transfer your roast profile directly from the Behmor (or any roaster) to a larger one. There will definitely need to be changes made as each roaster has different heating elements, air flow, drum rotation, etc.

[ianh]

Thanks Ben. Much appreciated, how do you generally go about transferring your roasting from the Behmore to the hacked oven you use?

[Ben]

I use the Behmor profile as a guide and then do a lot of sampling during the roast. My goal is to achieve the same result, but due to differences in the two roasters, the roasting curve is different.