First Look at the
"Behmor 1600 RoastJava Smoke-Less Gourmet
Coffee Roaster"
... well, that's what it says on the front!
The Behmor 1600 on my testing bench
It's a bit difficult to figure out the Behmor 1600 roaster. First off, it is not a microwave or toaster oven, even though it is by all appearances. Secondly, is it a Ronco halogen-bulb heated machine turned into a coffee roaster? It sure looks like that too. Is it smokeless ... oh wait, I must have misread it ... the front says "smoke-less". My bad (!). So it does smoke, just less. Thankfully, the machine itself is pretty easy to use and straightforward, because all the spin surrounding this is enough to cause a serious and prolonged case of nausea.
Okay, this is not the Behmor 1600. It is a pre-production small run prototype that Joe Behm, the inventor, was kind enough to send along. I don't feel too special though - it seems like everyone and their mother received one. So I don't really know what I am commenting on, and how it will relate to a final version. Let's put the most tantalizing information out there first: the target price is around $300-$400, and it will roast 1 pound of green coffee. That's something worth consideration. Serious consideration.
But the fact is, so much is unknown. Now I understand that Ronco is involved with the machine, and in fact I could intuit this from seeing a Ronco VP standing by Joe Behm at the SCAA show in Long Beach. The machine won an award there for best new consumer product, but let me reveal the truth here so nobody can accuse me of any wrongdoing: I was a judge for that product category, and of course I am going to vote for a home coffee roaster over a frozen cappucino mix! What makes me more unsure than ever is the Ronco connection. Is this a good thing for the consumer? Will it mean good warranty support? Are they really going to offer it? It's hard to believe after Zach & Dani's jumped the boat ... and that was the most serious "major corporate" interest there has ever been in home roasting. Remember the West Bend Roaster? Probably not. They bailed out so quick it wasn't even a blip on the map of home roasting. The risks are just so great with home roasting and the potential customer base so small, from a big corporate perspective. So would a Ronco really be there for the long run, if at all? It's all new terrain for a small-fry like me. But as I said, this machine has compelling features, and a compelling price point, so I think I can get over my squeemishness. And again, I havent seen the actual production model, so this is all a shot in the dark.
Here are the claims made in the Behmor literature about the roaster, mostly accurate, with my comments added in blue:
- Largest Capacity home roaster - 1 lb max to 1/4 lb min. - True, it can roast 1 lb without baking the coffee, a first in home roasters.
- Patent Pending smoke removal/air filtration system - I understand it has a filter/catalytic converter to reduce smoke, but it is not smokeless.
- Quick Start Controls - uh, sure, it starts when you push the button. good control panel layout.
- Patent Pending cooling cycle/system - extremely slow cooling is a problem: 13 minutes. It's no worse than the Genecafe in this respect, and (with both machines) you can override to stop the drum and remove the coffee ... not a great option but do-able.
- 4 Custom Pre-Programmed Time Controls - true
- 5 custom Pre-Programmed Heat/Roast Profile Control - you have some choice of roast curves here, all pre-programmed, not customizable
- Custom time controls to adjust roast times on the fly - true, can adjust time, but not temperature like the Genecafe.
- RoHS Compliant - okay
- Patent Pending Multi-Speed roast/cooling motor system - okay
- Very QUIET-designed to operate at 55db or less - it is fairly quiet. it's not easy to hear the first crack or second crack, but motor noise is not the issue
- Lighted interior-for viewing roasting beans - yes, but this is a dim yellow light and does not really aid visual inspection of the coffee.
- Thermostatically controlled quartz roasting elements - yes, this is like the old Unimax, Royalmax in this respect
- Easy to use and efficient chaff collection - uh, i guess, if rudimentary and crude means easy to use and efficient. basically it falls into a tray.
- Operating 1630w/15a 120v - Dimensions (inches) 17.5Lx10.5Hx12.5D Cubic inches appx. 1850/218 sq. in foot print - it is big, a big box.
- Automatic System Diagnostic - Troubleshooting - has error messages, but no little micro-bots emerge to repair the machine.
So let's consider the positives and negatives from my initial tests:
It roasts batches of 1/4, 1/2 or 1 Lb. It doesn't match roast profiles or times between these different batch sizes (that would be a lot to ask for) but it can indeed competently roast 1 Lb without an excessively long roast time. That's pretty remarkable for a 110 volt electric machine! Heat source is quartz halogen lights. Contol of the roast is by thermostatically heating or dimming these bulbs, not with air flow or other means.
The chassis, while lacking flare, is very solid. It feels like a small commercial microwave. It is bulky though.
The control panel offers adequate time controls, which allow you to add or subtract time during the roast. It offers 5 pre-programmed roast profiles, which should be adequate for many situations. It is easy to use, simple, effective.
It has a light inside, but you really cannot visually determine the roast. Of course, you are going to open the door to see where your roast is at, which will mean massive heat loss, but I found it didn't stall the roast to do so. The light could be improved if it was stronger, and the interior had a reflective material, I think
Seeing the roast through the finely perforated metal of the chaff collector is difficult. This is very crude, simple chaff collection; gravity. So it relies on the drum material having holes big enough so chaff can escape by falling through, while not allowing coffee to fall out. That's a problem in some cases. See below. Here are the results of 2 roasts of Yemen, a small-bean, dry-processed coffee. Huge amounts of chaff, with coffee getting stuck in the drum openings and burning. Burned beans falling into chaff can mean fire. Given this hazard, the resulting roast was salvageable. But you need to be diligent using this machine, and NEVER leave the roaster. There are quite a few coffees that would have problems here, even the longberry shape of a Harar will lodge into the "fryer basket" material of the drum and burn there during the roast.
In this respect, I think it is fair to call the Behmor 1600 a roaster that is comparable to an electric barbeque drum roaster - if that makes sense. It offers capacity, while having some drawbacks in terms of having access to the coffee (visually etc) to determine the level of roast. With both the HotTop and GeneCafe the coffee is pressed against glass during the roast. When will we get a roaster that you can actually pull a small sample direct from the drum to inspect while roasting? Hmmm.... maybe never.
The drum construction, what I call "Fryer Basket" material for the deep fry basket you would use in a kitchen, is thin, flexible. The drum is hard to load - you need to get your head down there, and light up the square peg that drives it to the drum. This could be improved upon a lot. After all, if someone fails to load the drum right, and it doesn't turn, and the roaster starts up - fire!
The machine will shut down if excessive temperatures are reached. This might help with that scenario.
My cup results where good: the roast profile is very similar to the Zach and Dani's: good development of body, more balance in the coffee. There was perhaps loss of some aromatics and bright notes found in corresponding air roasts (Hearthware iRoast-2). But I felt the cups were sweet, and had good roast taste development, meaning that the heat transfer to this coffee is neither too fast nor too slow. I am encouraged by the cup results.
