Too Much Coffee

I am still roasting with the Behmor, it is getting a bit old and cranky. Its latest trick is to start the drum rotating as soon as I switch on, strangely it does stop at the end of a roast. Of course there is my new Huky 500T that will be arriving tomorrow, as I did with my Genie when the Behmor arrived, I am going to offer the Behmor free to any member who wants to start to learn roasting. It still has a couple of years of service left in it, all I ask is that whoever gets it, passes it on when they upgrade. Oh! and come and collect when I can use the new addition to get a decent espresso roast from Chuky.

I will post the offer in the Members lounge when it is available.

I expect that will prompt Steve to give us at least one photo of his favourite roaster

Ohh eeerrr hmmmm will sort tomorrow I promise

In July of 2009 I bought a used Maggiolino from one of the other earlyTMC members from the Netherlands. It is a commercial sample roaster with electric heater and a capacity of up to 500g and was made by Coffeetech in Israel. In the last 6 years I have roasted more than 600 batches, usually 350g with it and am quite satisfied with the results. It is a completely manual unit with a simple electronic thermostat that is prone to hysteresis so that there are huge swings of temperature when it is idling. This requires a learning period for the human roaster. It took me about 30 roasts to get the hang of it and I am still finding ways to improve reproducibility. Of enormous help in this learning effort is the OCR RoastLogger software from our very own GreenBean, together with a webcam mounted over the thermostat display (seen at the top of the second picture below).
We drink espresso and espresso-based milk drinks almost exclusively so I tend to roast a bit darker, usually to rolling second crack (Full City +), however, as I mentioned elsewhere I usually temper this dark roast with a lighter roast of the same beans in a "single-origin blend." For normal blends I almost never roast mixtures of beans, but blend them after roasting for the obvious reason that some beans just do not do well under the same roasting conditions as others.
I have not had any repairs on the Maggiolino yet, have only completely disassembled and cleaned it thoroughly once. It is built like the proverbial battleship of cold-rolled and stainless steel. I would recommend this roaster for anyone seriously interested in roasting, however they are very rare and the likelihood of finding one is very small. They are no longer available from the manufacturer.

Bruce thats an awesome post !! Nice work (as always)

Really good read Bruce. I hadn't realised they were no longer made.

Steve wrote:Bruce thats an awesome post !! Nice work (as always)

+1
And a nice roaster as well

Amazing machine Bruce, built like an Israeli tank and styled by a genius. I love it.

So lets go on a journey together, we will start with the first roaster I ever had thats in reception my trusty Ambex 2kg machine



This was retired off a few years ago, but hold so many memories of setting fire to the roof of my garage at home.

then we have the replacement Ambex 2kg



Used a lot for the smaller roast to order COE type coffees we might only sell a kg a day

Then we have a Probatone 12



Then we have a Probat 25L



Then we have Eric the red my 1950's 60kg probat



And our collection of sample roasters a 1 barrel probat electric roaster that cost me £100 of ebay



2 x 2 barrel roasters from Brazil



and our 3 barrel Probat that cost me £900



Phew !!

Wow! What a line-up! I remember well roasting the cupping samples on that double barrel sample roaster. Seeing all of that beautiful machinery makes me wonder whether it isn't getting to be time for another visit! .

So when are you going to get a proper roaster then Steve?

Seriously impressive collection, I would think there are few, if any, with a larger choice of machinery

CakeBoy wrote:So when are you going to get a proper roaster then Steve?

Seriously impressive collection, I would think there are few, if any, with a larger choice of machinery

Hmmm, I didn't see one popcorn popper there, did you?

bruceb wrote:

CakeBoy wrote:So when are you going to get a proper roaster then Steve?

Seriously impressive collection, I would think there are few, if any, with a larger choice of machinery

Hmmm, I didn't see one popcorn popper there, did you?

No, that is disappointing I'm drooling over all those serious toys though, especially Eric the Red If it would fit on my hob and under my cooker hood I would seriously consider upgrading

Nice to hear about people's kit - love the photos Jason & Bruce!

Just to clarify - Steve doesn't roast on any of those any more - he's too busy opening church fetes and the like

He also forgot to mention there's a couple of Behmors that are stored too - I took one of them home when I was learning to roast

RolandGlew wrote:Nice to hear about people's kit - love the photos Jason & Bruce!

Just to clarify - Steve doesn't roast on any of those any more - he's too busy opening church fetes and the like

He also forgot to mention there's a couple of Behmors that are stored too - I took one of them home when I was learning to roast

Well it must be hard being an international media star and ambassador for the colour red! Besides, less roastery fires

He does have a point, I dont get to roast as much as I would like