Behmor 1600 - In Stock and ready to ship

The long awaiting Behmor Home Roaster is now available. We have had a production model for testing and have had a very nice correspondence with Joe Behm, the inventor and developer of this roaster, who has been working on it for seven years prior to its introduction. The roaster, prior to its official release, took the Best New Product Award at the 2006 Specialty Coffee Association show in Long Beach, a real coup.

The Behmor 1600 roasts 1/4, 1/2 or 1 pound of coffee. It has a choice of five profile programs. You cannot save program changes but some modifications can be made to roasts during a roast cycle to alter results. A terrific feature is the Behmor’s smoke suppression system which is very effective at nearly eliminating roasting smoke and much of the associated aroma. This roaster, as the instructions will tell you, is not for doing dark roasts. The maximum roast darkness is 10 seconds beyond the second crack, which would be approximately a lightly spotted roast, a little beyond Full City, or what you might describe as a ‘light Viennese’. If you wish to roast coffee darker than this you should look at other choices in home roasters. But, if your needs are in the realm of lighter roasts, which are best for coffee’s flavor nuances, the Behmor is a real contender.

The Behmor 1600 offers a lot of surprises and in many ways it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Upon opening the shipping box the first impression was that the box itself was substantial, with eighth inch plywood top and bottom, protecting the inner box. When we took the roaster out of the inner product packaging a few things stood out. Firstly, and everyone will say this, the roaster looks like a toaster oven or perhaps a microwave. I have to admit it’s nicely made and it’s obvious from the outset that a lot of detail and thought has gone into its finishes. The exterior, pull down door has brushed stainless facing out, with a knife shaped ‘window’ a couple of inches tall and nearly the full width of the door. To the right of the door is the control panel and display.

Behmor Construction Details

Open the front door and the first thing that greets you is perforated stainless steel. Upon unpacking the roaster and reading the directions fully, you will learn that this is the chaff collector and it is fabricated of stainless throughout. It has a pivoting grab handle attached to its exterior. On its interior is a shiny stainless ‘dustpan’ floor, which will later be used to catch any chaff that did not get caught in the device. A 2-inch paintbrush, provided, is the ‘broom’. This combination, a little humorous at first, is like many aspects of the Behmor 1600 that you will later come to appreciate. It works.

Behmor stainless chaff collector front and rear views

After removing the chaff collector you will see the cylindrical stainless cage in which coffee actually roasts. When removed, the cage or drum opens on one end and has a clamp to keep it closed. Behmor says that the drum will hold any size green coffee except for the smallest beans, which they indicate to be from Yemen and some Ethiopian. To remedy this situation should you wish to roast small beans there is a second, finer grid drum now in production. The grid spaces will be closer together to prevent beans from falling through. It will be offered as an add-on, not as an alternative. All roasters will come with the current cylinder and the smaller one can be purchased separately, if needed or desired.

Small Roasting Cylinder Update

Dec. 7, 2007 - The smaller grid cylinder will be available around the last week of December. It is now enroute to the US. We anticipate it to sell for about $15 and will determine an exact price shortly. You may question why the smaller grid is simply not to be used all the time instead of the existing roasting cylinder. It is because the present grid size allows chaff to escape and beans to remain inside during roasting for the majority of coffees you will encounter. This results in clean tasting coffee. While the grid with less spacing will restrain small beans the chaff coming off them is also smaller - the beans will stay in and the chaff will get through. But, if larger beans were roasted in the small cylinder the chaff would not get out, resulting in less clean coffee and increasing the risk of fire. There is no viable single size cylinder. The optional smaller grid is only necessary if you routinely roast small beans. Othewise, the cylinder that ships with the roaster is all you will need.

A.Smoke suppression exhaust system - B. Behmor roasting drum

The drum, of course, turns during roasting. It can only attach to the roaster housing and its motor one way. One side of the drum has a square peg that fits into a square hole; the other side is rounded and slips into a receiving collar once the square end is in place. Putting the drum into place is easy but in our test model we sometimes found it a bit difficult removing the drum after a roast. You are to lift up on the left side collared end and, moving the drum to the left, it should withdraw from the square hole. However, this sometimes takes more effort and we think this could stand some improvement. It is not a big detraction, just a detail that should work a little more smoothly.

With the drum out the interior is clean and surrounded by stainless surfaces. At the rear of the roaster are its heating elements, two 525-watt glass-heating elements for a total of 1050 watts, more than other home roasters. This is one reason the Behmor is capable of roasting up to a pound. At the top of the interior is a heated exhaust, which is responsible for removing smoke and some roasting odor. The interior is lit and the light can be turned on after the start of a roast with a button on the control panel; the light goes out after the cooling cycle has ended unless you want to turn it off.

Drum fits into square hole on right and into hook left.

Roasting with the Behmor 1600

This roaster was designed to appeal to a broad range of consumers, meaning that it had to be simple enough to be a home appliance for anyone interested in home roasting without their full immersion in coffee knowledge and roasting technique; but, it also needed to have some of the bells, whistles and controls for the experienced or tech-savvy enthusiast - a tall order and likely an impossible one. What the Behmor lacks for the latter group is readout of bean temperature during roasting, which is standard fare on the Hottop and Gene Café, albeit their accuracy is questionable. There is no thermocouple probe and it seems, due to the design of the rotating drum and how it is attaches to its drive, like it would not be possible to customize the roaster with one, which would also void the warranty. Instead, Behmor bases all roast levels on audible signals given by the coffee itself.

Being a very quiet roaster it is easy to hear coffee go through first crack. Behm has no doubt done laborious measurements to determine about how long it takes for coffee to go from first to second crack under various conditions, such as bean type, weight of coffee being roasted and selected profile. The roaster’s interior 15 watt light provides enough visibility to see bean development; it is not quite as easy to see the coffee roasting as some other roasters because you are seeing through the window of the front door and the stainless perforations of the chaff collector, but honestly, you can see well enough to make an informed decision as to when to stop a roast. You will get the hang of this quickly. You will also find that the profiles built in to the Behmor are very close to what you will likely seek in finished roasts and highly repeatable. This roaster’s ability to repeat results is one of its strengths.

Behmor also has a workaround for improving bean visibility. They offer instructions for cutting a 2.25 inch wide by 1.5 inch high cut in the upper left area of the chaff collector screen. This would provide a 'window' of sorts to better see bean development. We don't recommend you get out the metal shears just yet because we think you will find this step unnecessary, but know it's something you can do and which the company obviously sanctions since they provide the instructions on how to do it.

Profiles - As previously mentioned there are five pre-set roasting profiles. Joe Behm, inventor of the Behmor 1600, is not a coffee roaster himself by trade. But, he had valuable input and advice from some experienced industry insiders in developing these profiles. The instructions provided suggest which profile to use for a particular type of bean which they classify as: hard, soft or island. Further, there are specific instructions about roasting ¼, ½, or 1 pound of coffee for each of the profiles. Weight of the coffee being roasted increases roast time, with full pounds reaching more than twenty minutes. This may be of concern to some, but coffee can be roasted for extended times as long as it is not baking or causing beans to chip.

Keypad - The control panel keypad is broken into sections for:

• Roast Weight - ¼, ½, or 1 pound
• Programs - which are initial start times associated with each roast weight
• Time increment - which are really time adjustments. Pressing the + button increases roast time in 15 second increments up to the maximum allowed for each profile and weight combination; the - button decreases roast time in 10 second increments.
• Profiles - variable methods to achieve different taste elements from any given coffee.
• Other buttons - Start, Off, Light and Cool are self-explanatory. Cool begins the cooling cycle immediately.

To do a roast choose a profile and select the appropriate weight of coffee to be roasted (¼, ½, or 1 pound). Once those decisions have been made you would press a series of buttons to start a roast. For example, if you wanted to roast a half pound of hard bean Guatemala at Profile 2, you would press these buttons: 1/2, P2, B, Start. The first button selects the weight, the second the profile, the third, B, sets a time adjustment, in this case 13 minutes, and finally, you press the Start button to begin the roast.

Shown below are the initial start times associated with each weight and program buttons. These can be further adjusted with the plus and minus time increment buttons up to the maximum allowed for each profile and weight combination.

Important: We observed no hot spots, tipping or chipping of the beans during any roast cycles. Beans roasted uniformly. The drum’s design, which has several paddles and vee shapes, provides for ample mixing and movement during roasting. Also of significance, coffee is not roasting in a smoky environment so the roasted beans have a cleaner, brighter taste. Many commercial roasters cannot lay claim to this, not to mention home roasters.

Profiles Detailed

• P1 - Basically ramps right on up to 100% power and keeps that level for 100% of the roast time, producing the quickest roast. Notation: 100/100.
• P2 - Like P1 ramps at 100% for the first 60% of the roasting time, then drops to 70% power for the next 30% of time. Full power for remainder of roast. Notation: 100/60, 70/30, 100/10.
• P3 - A more gradual ramp-up. During the first 20% of time roasts at 70% power; 80% power during next 35% of time; full power during remainder of roast. Notation: 70/20, 80/35, 100/45.
• P4 - A variation on P3. During the first 30% of time roasts at 70% power; 85% power during next 30% of time; full power during remainder of roast. Notation: 70/30, 85/30, 100/40.
• P5 - The longest roast with the slowest, most gradual ramp-up. Roast time is broken into thirds with 70%, 80% and 95% power supplied in each segment respectively. Notation: 70/33, 80/33, 95/34.

Behmor shows P1 and P2 as roasts for Hard Bean coffees; P3 for Soft Bean/low grown coffees; P4 for soft or espresso blends; and, P5 for Island coffees such as those from Hawaii, Jamaica, etc roasted to City/City+. Our own assessment and preference differs slightly for a number of coffees we have roasted. We find ourselves gravitating to P3 for many coffees. This profile provides brightness plus body. The P5 profile is a sharp contrast to the others in that it produces roasts that are definitely skewed toward acidity; many of the mid tones and body are missing. Nonetheless, it is informative to see the effects on the final output.

While the roasting profiles cannot be altered or reprogrammed, it is possible to add or subtract time to roasts once they have started and effectively tweak them in this fashion. This roaster is unique in that you can continue to add increments up to the maximum allowed for each profile and weight combination (see chart below), though be cautioned, once past second crack you will begin to be inundated with smoke and this roaster has not been designed to produce dark roasts. The Hottop by contrast, allows the user to add 5 thirty second Plus Times in total to the preset roast time.

Maximum Roast Times - The roaster will not let you roast longer than the times shown below for each weight and profile as indicated.

Conclusion

We think the Behmor 1600 is going to be very popular. The bottom line is that it roasts coffee very well and does so with a minimum of noise and smoke, making it well suited to home use. The price point puts it in reach of most consumers, filling a gap between the smaller roasters that sell for less than $200 and the larger Hottop and Genecafe roasters that sell for hundreds more. Also, the flexibility to roast batches up to a full pound yet as small as a quarter pound is terrific. Profiles are effective. The appearance of the roaster, though not 'roaster-like' will feel at home in kitchens or other areas of the home.

Behmor recommends you refer to the latest product documents. This manual provides more detail than the one packed with the roaster. Reference materials available for download:

• Behmor Operation Manual V3.3
• Behmor Roaster Warranty
• Important Safeguards and Profiles
• Manual Updates 02.06.08- updated FAQs, Maintenance, Troubleshooting and more.