Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Behmor Drum Coffee Roaster: My First Roasts

When my roaster arrived, I was so excited that I decided to roast right away. It came with nine different coffees (7 one-pound samplers plus two coffees that I had ordered, including the Espresso Monkey Blend).

I chose to christen the roaster with a half pound of Colombia Huila Valencia. I figured that I didn't want too start with anything tricky, difficult, or too exotic. I wanted a coffee that was easy to understand and enjoy, and to me this means Costa Rican or Colombian coffee. Sweet Maria's had shipped me both; I found the bag of Colombian first.

I placed the roaster on the stove under the exhaust fan and roasted my first batch with the defaults: P1/A, which computes to 12 minutes at the factory programmed "P1" roast curve (recommended by Sweet Maria's for beginners).

The machine's button layout is not intuitive; you have to press one of the top buttons, then one of the ones in the bottom-middle of the panel, then on of the ones in the top middle, optionally followed by one or two presses of the - or + buttons in the very middle, followed by START at the very bottom. This is a minor complaint but it's something that can be improved in the next model.

The machine runs extremely quietly. I initially ran it without the exhaust fan turned on so I could hear the cracks. This was a mistake, as the smoke alarms went off at about -1:50. Thus I was distracted from the roast for a while as I ran to turn on the fan and open a door. However, in later roasts, with the exhaust fan on, I was able to roast without any alarms. The Behmor's smoke suppression system is imperfect, but there is far less smoke than with the iRoast. Also, since it does not use any kind of forced air, I can clean the brown coffee residue from the exhaust area over my stove without worrying about it coming back!

I heard first crack at about -2:34. I ended up boosting the roast time by a couple of clicks at the end of the roast, and hit cool at the first sign of 2nd crack. The cool cycle is far longer than the iRoast's and not as immediately effective; you need to stop your roasts a little early because they continue into the cool cycle for quite some time.

Unfortunately, I think I hit the Cool button prematurely; after a day of resting, the coffee had a slight but unmistakable sourness characteristic of under roasted beans.

My next roast worked about much better: I roasted 1/2 a pound of the Espresso Monkey on P4/D - for a starting roast time of -14:50. First crack arrived rather quietly at -2:48, and I ended up hitting + twice (++ in my shorthand) and then stopping the roast with -:10 on the now-adjusted clock, which was precisely 10 seconds into second crack.

I roasted this bean to make espressos and this roast was much better than my first! The espressos were delicious, with plenty of crema and a natural sweetness and chocolate flavor that was simply awesome. I hope my next batch of the Monkey is exactly the same!

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