Gene Cafe CBR-301 Roaster

The basics of the new Gene Cafe CBR-301 are nearly identical to the time-tested CBR-101, until you connect the app that is! Both machines roast coffee via hot air being pushed through the coffee bed, similar to a hot air roaster, while tumbling, and mixing the coffee in a rotating drum, like a drum roaster. Although we classify the Gene Cafe as a drum roaster ourselves, it’s really more of a hybrid design that produces great, consistent and repeatable results across a range of roast levels from City+ on up.

With the Gene Cafe CBR-301, the roast remains easy to observe due to the glass roast chamber, and the physical controls make it easy to modify the total roast time and target temperature throughout the roast. Although the chaff collector is a new design, it can still deal with the most chaff-heavy coffees and can still be connected to dryer duct tubing to vent the smoke out a window. The roaster is very quiet compared to air machines, but the design of the chaff collector can make the cracks difficult to hear. In these respects, the CBR-301 is very similar to the original model. The differences come through when you connect the roaster to the Gene Cafe App over Bluetooth.

App Controls

The app enables you to adjust the fan and drum speeds, offering three different settings for both. After a bunch of 200g test roasts, we have found the impact of fan adjustments to be modest but noticeable. For people who like the Gene Cafe formula but wished they had just a little bit more control over the roast, the extra flexibility will be quite welcome. Those hoping for a huge new range of adjustability or a totally revised roasting experience will probably be underwhelmed. For us, the jury is still out on the impact of the drum speed. We’ll continue to test, but we think what it really helps with is consistency across a wider range of batch sizes large and small.

Roast Logging

The feature we liked best about the app was the automated roast logging. The app tracks time, exhaust temperature, and roast settings, also allowing you to save related files. After the roast is finished, you can enter your green bean information, including starting and finishing weight. The app will calculate the weight loss for you. There’s also a handy comparison feature that will overlay the graphs and let you look at two roasts side-by-side. It seems kind of trivial, as these are all things you can do with pen and paper, or with a spreadsheet if that’s more your style, but there’s no denying the convenience. While the implementation is pretty basic, it works well and we were happy to have it.

Choosing Between the 101 and the 301

So do we like the new model? Yes! Does it produce good results across a variety of roast ranges from City+ on up? Yes! Do we recommend it? Yes! Should you definitely get it instead of the original Gene Cafe? Not necessarily! Finally, is it worth the increased price? Could be!

To cut to the chase, if you don’t want to use the app or just prefer the classic experience of setting your time and temperature and letting the roaster do its thing, we think you should consider the original CBR-101 instead. Without the app, the machines are very, very similar and produce equally good results, so why not save a couple hundred dollars? Technically, even without the app, this new model reaches a higher max temperature which could allow for larger batch sizes at least, but we think that adjusting the fan and drum speed are necessary to get solid results with larger batches.

If you are happy to use the app, here’s the next question: Is the extra $260 over the original Gene Cafe worth it for what you get? For a lot of people, the answer will be yes. We find the roast logging to be really nice in particular. It’s not revolutionary or game-changing, but given the longevity of Gene Cafe roasters, there is value over time. The same can be said for the fan and drum setting adjustments. They don’t dramatically change the experience of roasting on a Gene Cafe, but we do see them as an improvement and think it will enable home roasters to further hone their Gene Cafe roasts. But if all this sounds a little ho-hum, the original Gene Cafe is as great as ever.