A New Toy and a New Learning Curve

Well, I ended up going down quite a rathole with my Gene Cafe. I replaced the heater, but things still weren't as they were. As far as I can tell it works ok, but something is just different than before. After roasting a pound or two a week for years, I knew what the coffee from that roaster was going to taste like and what the behavior during the roast would be. For whatever reason, something changed and I was staring down a new learning curve. The coffee just wasn't good enough.

Then the little devious part of my mind started working. "Hey Scotto, if you are going to have to learn something all over again, why not upgrade and do it on a new machine? Expensive? Sure it is. You're worth it, though...." Before I knew it, a Hottop roaster was on its way to me.

I had quite the internal debate over roasters. Everyone is hot on the Behmor roaster (pun intended), and it is certainly a lot cheaper than a Hottop. The deal breaker for me was the fact that you can't control the roast profile. Being a scientific type, I like to be able to control things and tune profiles for different coffees. That, combined with the excellent track record of build quality of the Hottop, as well as external cooling of the beans, won me over.

A few roasts in, and this is definitely a different beast for me. There is fine tuning over the heater power (not just on/off like the Gene) and a variable fan as well. The stock thermocouple is bolted to the rear wall and is slow to react, so that will have to be addressed as well. My first couple of roasts blasted through first crack into second. After that, I learned to anticipate first crack and turn down the heater to gently ease the beans into it. By the way, I can't believe how quiet this thing is and how trivial it is to hear the cracks. There is no mistaking them whatsoever, and the challenge in other roasters of hearing over air blasting or inside a closed drum is gone. What a pleasure!

Here is a look at a recent profile:


You can see that I reduced the heater power at about 7:30 in, and the slow reaction of the measured temperature. Remember that this temperature (the pink line) is the essentially the temperature of the back wall of the roaster, not the bean temperature. I boxed out where 1st crack stopped and ended as well.

Unfortunately each bean is different, and changing power and fan on the fly is difficult, so I ordered a thermocouple probe to be able to get at the temperature of the bean mass itself. Stay tuned for that. I'll also mention how nice it is to dump the beans when you want, so there is no worries about "coasting" after you reach your desired roast level. The external cooling works great.

Most importantly, the coffee has been very good. Roasts in the Hottop are extremely sweet and full bodied, especially good for espresso. I suspect as I get better and driving this thing I will exceed my previous coffee skill by a wide margin.