Should I get a Gene?

[Sarion]

Thank you very much for all your input, guys! You've given me a lot to think about. I might be tempted to get the Gene again.

And you guys promised me all this coffee stuff was easy and cheap!

[GreenBean]

And you guys promised me all this coffee stuff was easy and cheap!

Yes, and we are all completely sane and the moon is made of green cheese and ...

[Walter]

And you guys promised me all this coffee stuff was easy and cheap!

Well it could be...

All it takes is good water, excellent coffee plus a Zass and a Frenchpress...

I've done a couple hundred roasts with my Gene and a little less with my manual Hottop. Both roasters have their merits and shortcomings and both can make good coffee. I have had no clear preference of one over the other.

----

... and the moon is made of green cheese and ...

Aaaah, now i know why the man in the moon came down too soon...

[nickr]

Having suffered basic Hottop there is no way I would go back, not even to the top end model. The basic model suffers from the most primative control system to be found on anything I've even come across - slight voltage variations WILL affect your roast. Early models caught fire and rather than design a proper control system they just made it produce less heat. This means the roast times for a full load are way too long.

[GeorgeW]

^^^^ True, the full 250g load is a little long 18 min plus, but with 225g I find that most of my roasts do come in at around 17 mins which appears about right.

[Merlino]

I've got the Gene CR for about 3 months now (avg. 2 roasting sessions of 4 diff SOs a week) and I'm very happy with it. The biggest drawback I can see is the slow cooling. I always cool externally (pour the beans into a colander and stir them with a wooden spoon over the sink to catch any remaining chaff).

I have no experience whatsoever with the HotTop but I personally see no point in spending the extra money since the Gene really works for me.

[Wes]

I've had my Gene for about two months and maybe put 15 roasts through it.

Temperatures as it measures them have stayed decently consistent roast to roast. To be specific, I think the biggest variance that I have seen at any given minute in a roast is perhaps 3 degrees C. And this has been mostly attributable to declining ambient temperatures as winter comes on.

Heating capacity seems very good. My 250 gram batches always complete to 30-45 secs of second crack in less than 17 minutes, and usually just about at the 16th.

The cracks begin and end at somewhat different points in a series of roasts, but I ascribe that mostly to humidity changes and to the fact that I'm doing a blend rather than an SO so that onset and conclusion of cracks is necessarily a little blurry.

Visibility of the roast is exceptional and is a more useful indicator than I would have predicted, a very valuable clue about when you are done.

My biggest criticism would be that it is hard to hear the cracks once I turn on my kitchen hood to high. Of course, that is also partly due to the blend I've been using. (Maybe a stethoscope will help.)

The cooling worried me initially, and I tried early dumping. That was a nuisance compared to letting Gene do it, and I was afraid the heating element was getting some abuse by being out of the fan's airstream while I fumbled with dumping the roast.

In the end, I was not able to taste any difference between the faster externally cooled batches and the ones that Gene handled to conclusion.

As someone else has pointed out, although the cooling time is lengthy, the drop in the first three minutes is satisfyingly steep, to about 140 C.

Of course, I speak as someone whose previous experience was with a stove-top corn popper. The gains are immense from the Gene, but I'm not in position to compare them to the Hottop.

[toast21]

Hi guys, fully agrew with Wes about the gene. We did a couple of blind taste tests with the standard HT vs the new Gene Cafe (March 2007 version). Both machines produced great results and as Wes said, the slightly lengthy cool down period certainly didn't seem to affect the flavour in any way (both straight away and in the blind taste test 3 days post roast).

As for the smoke issue... i've got a gene and yes the boy does smoke a bit indoors.. however not as much as when i had a WP. That said, BB does sell a bigger chaff collector which has a spout that you can attach a pipe to which will then vent the smoke out of a nearby window - very handy. Once again, this is optional.. i put the gene under the extractor fan, turn it on, open the window and everything is fine.

I really like the visibility of the beans in the gene... makes everything easy to see. As for the noise... Nick can attest to that but seeing i started from a WP... its almost whisper quiet .

I think the ability to modify the roast (whichever the machine) is definately something that you'll want as you progress. At the start its very easy to charr the bejeebers out of your beans, but as i've progressed, i'm finding that 1-2 degrees and 30 seconds time can make the difference between an average roast (even a horrible roast) and a good roast.

My opinion, I say go the Gene, but make sure its the new one (March 2007 onwards).

[espressomattic]

Of course, I speak as someone whose previous experience was with a stove-top corn popper. The gains are immense from the Gene, but I'm not in position to compare them to the Hottop.

I personally found my results with a WP far superior to the Gene any day. More control, better profiling etc. But saying that I get decent roasts from the oven too. It is weird using a Gene but not really approving of it??!!??

[Wes]

That is a weird difference between our impressions, espressomatic.

I hated above all using a gas burner to get to the mandated start temperature. It could take an hour if gas pressure varied in my building or in daylight when it was hard to see the flame. (I allow that I was maybe a touch fussy about that, but the starting point seemed to be the only thing I could really set with precision.

Then I always felt that flame continued to vary as I was roasting. So I had zero confidence in Whirley-Pop's consistency.

The cracks were audible enough, but it seemed to take a minute or more of second crack to get a plausible roast that was even. Getting it even seemed to require that I make it rather darker than I do with the Gene. Not Starbucks dark, but pretty far in that direction. To judge the finish, I had to dump the beans quickly into a big strainer and usually return them to the WP for one or more 15-second sojourns until I felt the roast was finished. No visibility was a real problem.

Then there was the taste of the trapped smoke that was always a part of such an enclosed process.

I was quite glad to set it aside and take up the Gene. Now, having said that, I used that popper on the flame for perhaps four years and enjoyed the coffee from it more than anything I could buy in my vicinity. So I don't condemn it, but it's hard for me to see it as superior to any other method--even though there are only the two methods that I've tried.

It's still early days for me and the Gene. Maybe it will pall on me yet.

[bruceb]

Certainly, from the construction quality the HT is on a much higher level.

That said, I just almost ruined a batch of beans because I had apparently pressed the preset time on the HT-digital one too many times and instead of pushing it to 22 minutes I reset it to 17 minutes. After well into the roast I realised this error, but there was nothing I could do about it but press the "Plus" button 5 times and that got me to 19 minutes, just starting 2nd crack and the machine then ejected. I would have liked to have taken them to rolling 2nd, but there was nothing I could do. The machine is prewired that way. I hate that and I hated it with the Alpenröst and I hate it with the Gene. They just don't give me the freedom I want.

At the same time I remember the words of an engineer who designed home appliances: "When you are trying to design a complex machine that will be used by complete idiots who know how to litigate against manufacturers, but know nothing else, you have to make very unpleasant compromises." I also remember seeing a video of a complete idiot taking a home video of his HT as it burned up after roasting 150g of beans for 22 minutes. He threatened to sue and got his money back. Who can blame the manufacturers for castrating their machines?

[toast21]

That said, I just almost ruined a batch of beans because I had apparently pressed the preset time on the HT-digital one too many times and instead of pushing it to 22 minutes I reset it to 17 minutes. After well into the roast I realised this error, but there was nothing I could do about it but press the "Plus" button 5 times and that got me to 19 minutes, just starting 2nd crack and the machine then ejected. I would have liked to have taken them to rolling 2nd, but there was nothing I could do. The machine is prewired that way. I hate that and I hated it with the Alpenröst and I hate it with the Gene. They just don't give me the freedom I want.

Hi bruce, you had that happen to you on a gene as well? with mine, I can just turn the dial and change the roast time to whatever i want (as many times as i want), anytime in the roast... Same goes with the exit temp - everything's fully adjustable. I usually start at the 17 minute mark and adjust based on there. To be honest, I never let it run out though.. i manually cut off the roast once i'm happy with the colour / temp / cracks.

[Sarion]

Great response, guys! I was really hoping you would talk about your experiences, and you've really come through!

Looks like I'll be ordering a Gene somewhere soon. What was the TMC discount rate again, Ivo?

[Richard]

Erm ?

No bold statement, have any of you who got to be well accomplished with basic method such as Donald Duck or a wok with lid ever done a contest (For want of better description) with the up-market bean roasters ?

Ok, I'm still just out of the embryo stage but I'm drinking far better coffee than store-bought and as good as the best I tasted elsewhere yet, is throwing £300 at the roasting process going to improve on what my Duck produces ?

Just prior to joining the forum I spent some time on the HasBean site and others, the perceived costs almost scared me back to store-bought coffee but you forum guys encouraged me and so I produce good or better coffee with my simple gear.

For those who would like to take-up the 'sport' of making coffee from green beans how about a roasting comparison between the two extremes just for the fun and encouragement of others.

[toast21]

Hey Richard, yes I think you'll find that a lot of us came from quite small beginnings.. popcorn poppers, whirley pop etc. I personally came from the whirley pop. Now, understandably, my skills weren't as good back then as they are now, but back when i was using the WP, I would say that the flavours of the coffee were more "muted" and tended to converge more to the generic "coffee" taste. Dont get me wrong, it certainly tasted fine and much better than shop bought stuff.

Now that i have a gene, i can taste more of the various flavours of the coffee.. be it caramel, chocolate etc. Mind you, i've yet to find the blueberry in the etheopian harrar. Anyway, as mentioned, i'm finding that even a couple of degrees temperature at various times can make a big difference in the finished product. With a wok / WP etc, unless you're amazing, you just dont have that sort of control.

Lastly though, i balked at the cost of these things at the start but just saved up. I've under no illusions that roasting coffee will save money.. yes the greens i buy are cheaper than roasted, but i've got this expensive gene . I figure i'm investing in learning about coffee... hope it helps mate