Questions for Behmor/Gene/Hottop owners

[arjaybee]

I've only had my FR500 a few weeks and am already thinking about upgrading. I probably will wait a few months at the very least, but in the meantime I am curious..

The SM roaster comparison chart implies that the only serious negative to the Hottop is the price. The Behmor and Gene both have some negatives listed (dark roasts and probs with high chaff coffees for the behmor, less cooling control for the Gene).

My question to Gene and Behmor owners: Do you feel like you compromised based on price or would you have chosen the same roaster even if all three were the same price?

My question to Hottop owners: Do you agree with the SM comparison chart that the only serious negative is the price? Would you make the same decision again or would you consider the Gene or Behmor if you were buying today?

The only one of the three I've seen operate in person is the Hottop and I have to admit I was impressed.

[troposcuba]

I love my GC. I have not used the other 2. Keep in mind it is not really programmable in any way. You pretty much get a dial for temp, and a dial for time. The cooling cycle on the machine is not very good, but I cool my roast externally. What it does give you is complete (manual) control over time and temp of the roast. This allows you to achieve any roast and any temp ramp rate you desire, but takes a bit of practice (or a lot of reading here and the homeroasters.org websites). So from my experience, if you are a hands on, control freak, you will like the GC. if you are a set it and forget it kind of guy, then you might want one of the others.

[jfutral]

I think the Behmor is about as close to an appliance roaster as you can get. You can adjust roasting levels and profiles to a certain extent by playing around with how much you roast and how you configure the profiles. You can get some great roasts. I haven't had a bad batch yet. And I've had NW, USA, coffee drinkin' friends who loved my coffee before they found out it wasn't from a commercial local roaster. I am sure similar results can be had with the Gene, just with a different focus on how you control the roasts.

But if you want to really get into roasting indepth, logging roasts to get a profile you like and want to replicate for certain beans or experiment with extending certain times along the roast, etc., the Hottop is the way to go.

If money weren't an object I would probably have gone Hottop, and may still. But I have no regrets on the Behmor and look forward to many more roasts.

Joe

[Army Coffee]

I think the cooling comment about the Gene Cafe is cutting hairs. I have always emergency dumped from my GC onto a Vented Pan on the back of a Fan. Never been a problem and I am very, very happy with the selection I made.

Drew

[bigbells]

My question to Gene and Behmor owners: Do you feel like you compromised based on price or would you have chosen the same roaster even if all three were the same price?

Somewhere on this forum, around a month ago, I posted my rationale for why I would still seriously consider the Behmor even if all 3 roasters were the same price. At the time I had not used any of the three roasters. I got a Behmor last week but still have no experience whatsoever with the other 2. I have absolutely no complaints regarding the Behmor. It does everything I would ever want it to do, and doesn't seem to have any difficulty in doing the things it's supposedly not able to do well, ie roasting a full pound well into 2nd crack. If all 3 really were the same price I'd have gotten the Hottop but I'd be missing the higher roasting capacity I get with the Behmor. It seems to me that almost everyone who owns one of three is very happy with whichever one they have.

[MikeW]

I have a Behmor too and like it very much. If the Hottop truly has a better chaff solution, then I might prefer it. Its cooling solution is better. Behmor's smoke solution is better. Behmor has over the top outstanding customer service and support. Its weakness is I think chaff (not a huge deal, a small chore to collect), and lack of control. Behmor's cooling is OK, because if you want you can pop the beans after 3 minutes or so. Both roasters are sturdy, deliver very good tasting coffee, and are user-repairable.

-Mike

[w0fms]

There is a lot to be said about the fact that the Behmor is priced so you can almost get two of them for the price of the Gene Cafe and three of them for the price of a HotTop.

I will get my Behmor on Friday. I decided on it because I am starting to drink enough coffee that an hour plus roasting session with my technique on the West Bend Air Crazy (WB AC) at 3 oz green 2.5 oz-ish roasted is getting to be too much. My foray into Espresso means now that I drink a whole WB AC roast batch with my wife at one sitting.

I like the Gene except for the glass roast chamber and the price. The HopTop doesn't really have smoke suppression at all and is quite pricey for what it is. I like the fact that the Behmor has at least some smoke suppression. I still went ahead and installed a homebrew exhaust fan (I'll 'blog about it) in the basement of my house and am setting up a station to roast there. The Behmor seems pretty fixable by the end-user and so far Joe Behm is willing to make parts available to fix it.

That and the control system and the way it heats the drum up is pretty neat too. It's definitely an Engineer's unit from looking at it-- I can't help going "cool!" when I see it.

However, I think you'd do well with any of the "drum roasters". I think the Gene is really a hybrid drum/air bed if I recall correctly, which makes it a little more interesting than the HotTop to me.. but it probably matters little in actual use.

So it depends on how "nice" of quality you want-- the Gene and HotTop are more substantially built.

It does NOT depend if you are a "set and walk away" kind of guy as was implied in this thread. You DO NOT walk away from a roast in any type of machine. The Behmor is programmable enough to make repeatable roasts from roast to roast of the same bean, but even then it should be watched.

You can roast dark in the Behmor. But if you let it get out of control you will potentially damage the machine and start a fire.

We will see, but my friend who has one it pretty impressed with the Behmor 1600.. I'll probably have something to say about it early next week. It's on it's way...

Fred

[troposcuba]

I didn't mean to imply that it is a good idea to walk away from the roaster while it is running. Obviously not a good idea unless you are roasting inside a fire safe. Really, it is all about preference and price. I am sure that all 3 are good roasters. I only have experience with the GC (and a few iRoast2's). enjoy the coffee. that is what it is all about in the end.

[arjaybee]

Yes, from what I've seen any of the three (and I assume air roasters too) have the potential to catch fire if you leave them unattended or don't keep them clean, etc.

Maybe I'm wrong, but my impression after reading people's comments here an elsewhere is that the Behmor Chaff collector design may not be quite as good as the other two? Mostly this is due to the warnings against dark roasts and high chaff coffees, but I've also seen people actually comment about chaff catching fire during an attended roast in a clean Behmor.

Maybe this is sampling error though, there seem to be a lot more Behmors out there, probably due to the price, so it stands to reason that there would be more experiences posted in general good, bad and in between.

[MikeW]

So it depends on how "nice" of quality you want-- the Gene and HotTop are more substantially built.

Fred, do you mean that? Build is one thing I'm impressed with every time I use the Behmor. The oven, the main unit I mean, is all steel -- there are plastic / resin components inside, fans and PCBs and such, but structural material is steel. It has a really nice paint job. The door is very sturdy and its action is as high quality as the best toaster ovens if not higher. Fit and finish is excellent. We've all seen Josh manhandle these roasters in full expectation of no damage.

The mesh drum is of lesser build quality. The drum is designed very well and works very well, but it has some sharp points where the mesh has been cut. Otherwise the oven has no sharp edges, you can put your hands in there and nothing will cut you. The main unit is crawling with sheet metal and screws, and nothing is there that will hurt you... Except heat.

The product is a pleasure to use because of its solidity. The buttons are cheap but are weighted well and click nicely. The other good thing about the buttons is that you're not pressing "up up up up up" and "down down down down". You press one button to do one thing. Press, press, press, and Start, and you're rolling.

The Behmor is not a piece of man-jewelry like a La Marzocco. But it is right up there in feel and pleasure-to-use.

Personally I wish the overall electronics / "user interface" for the roaster were designed differently. And, the overall design is not elegant like the Hottop, and I prefer the Hottop design. But, one advantage of Behmor's design is you have instant access to the inside -- no disassembly required, just open the door, and you can clean stuff, repair stuff, put out chaff fires, etc.

If the Behmor were priced at $800 I bet it would get a lot more respect than it already does.

-Mike