Behmor 1600 Plus Customizable Drum Coffee Roaster

First, a big thanks to Brian for his review. It was very informative and well written. It is one of the reasons I chose to buy this product after reading all the negative reviews. Some of my review will echo his. The roaster seems to be well made and sturdy. The two pins at the bottom of the door look like a bit of a weak point to me but seem to be working ok. The glass window in the door is a bit small but I can see well enough to monitor the roast. The light inside in conjunction with the light from the heating elements is quite bright. Overall construction seems good. Smoke suppression is good unless you open the door for cooling. If you need to do that I would suggest using it under a range hood with a good fan. I've had the roaster for almost a week now and have completed three roasts, one a 1/4 pound as suggested in the manual and the last two 1/2 pound roasts in the manual mode. I have only been roasting for a couple of years now using one of those SR-500 air roasters but that was a good start. The first roast was a bit darker than I prefer but that was my fault for not watching close enough. The second roast, manual mode, was better but still a bit too dark. Todays manual mode roast came out perfect. Now to address some of the complaints about this roaster. I read a lot of complaints about it not getting hot enough according to the temperature sensors. Simple physics on that one. If you look at the heating elements in the back you will notice a shiny metal reflector in the back. This provides radiant heat by reflecting the heat forward. Since the beans, and not the sensors, are in front the heat to the beans will be hotter than the sensor temperature. I have had no trouble heating the beans to a proper roasting temperature. There were also a lot of complaints about ruining a roast because of over or under cooking. My manual made perfectly clear that this was not a set and forget roaster. It tells you to set, monitor and adjust to get a proper roast. And you will have to pay attention throughout the roast cycle. You need to use sight, sound and smell if you want a great roast. Which is why I used the manual mode after the first roast. This is not the roaster for you if you aren't willing to monitor each and every roast. In todays roast I pressed 1/2 pound and start. Then I pressed P5 and waited until the first crack. I then pressed C and when it got to 30 seconds left and had not heard the second crack I added 30 seconds. As soon as it reached the second crack I pressed cool. Looking at the color of the roast I decided to open the door part way, a tip in the manual, so the roast would cool a little quicker. End result was just what I was looking for. To recap, this is not nor does it claim to be a set and forget roaster. This is not a roaster for someone who can't be bothered by watching the process from start to finish. What it is, is a very good roaster for anyone not willing to spend in the thousands of dollars, me for example, for a professional roaster. If you are searching for that nearly perfect cup of morning coffee it is a good start. If you are serious about home roasting and willing to spend the time learning about roasting I would highly recommend this roaster. If anything goes wrong over the next few months I will amend this review to keep you informed. Follow up to review with added info: Had occasion to contact Behmor support with an issue I had with the roasting drum. I emailed them on the 31st of January in the evening. To my surprise I had a response from them the next morning, January 1st, telling me they would send out a new drum on Tuesday. As promised the drum was shipped on Tuesday and arrived here today, the 6th. It would have been here on the 5th but there was some pretty bad weather along the route. Anyway, definitely 5 star support. Also, having used the roaster to roast my Christmas coffee for people on my list I am able to report that I am still very happy with this purchase. The only way I can see to ruin a roast is to walk away after pressing start and come back expecting a perfect batch. If you are looking for that you would probably be better served just buying the roasted beans from your local coffee roaster. Follow up after extended use. 07/22/2018 I've been using this for over 1 1/2 years now and it is still going strong. I established a monthly cleaning schedule early on and have stuck to it. It seems to be paying off with a long life. And I still recommend this unit to anyone willing to take the time to learn how to use it properly. This is my last update.

I dislike this machine, and it is way overpriced for what it is. It's weak. The roaster is rated for 1 lb, but as is widely commented, it can't handle that. Stay below 8oz. The total roasting time is capped by the oppressive safety controls, which I'll get to in a bit. One way that's been recommended is to warm the oven up first with a quick initial run. However if you heat up too much, the oven will refuse to turn back on. Which brings me to its next problem... It has maddeningly overbearing safety controls. They not just arbitrarily limit max roasting time, and temperature at which you can turn it back on, they also require you to hover over it well before it finishes. You have to be there as it arrives at 75% complete and press a button to continue. This alone is not too bad, but if you miss the flashing indicator and fail to press the start button in the allotted time (30s), it will shut down and hibernate for ~15 minutes! Because the display is faint, and there's no beep or anything, I lose batches regularly, even as I hover. I've been roasting for years, and now about a year with the Behmor, and I've lost numerous batches. Safety controls are fine, but the refusal to restart and the strictly enforced time limit are just excessive. Roasting can be dangerous, but in the end this is just a toaster oven. Toasters are dangerous. I guess. Imagine if your convection oven played that game with you, and it's actually in your house. The 'smoke suppression' stuff is just false advertising. It will make smoke, and you WON'T want this in your kitchen, you'll have to roast outside. Fine, you probably shouldn't be roasting inside, but the LED display is dim, and becomes invisible in the sun. This normally isn't a big deal, since one gauges a roast more by the type of smoke it's producing and the sounds it's making than the time it's been roasting. But since you have to press a button at the time indicated by the LED display, unless you're in the shade you'll be hunched and squinting at the display near the 75% mark. Miss that indicator and you lose the batch. Since I only have a sunny location outside, I cannot actually see the indicator and have to time it and shade it with my hands to find the 30s interval. Annoying. A more minor point to the manufacturer, the metal surfaces in the drum should be matte, not mirror smooth, as the glint of reflected heating element I always see as the drum rotates sometimes makes it appear my roast is on fire. And this should also have an LED display that shows the oven temp. And stop babying people. I bought this for 280, which is a lot for a toaster oven, but the close to 400 price tag is just unreasonable. It's a toaster. Remember that. Update: It's been several years now, and this high dollar nanny toaster can now only manage about 7oz before it aborts. I now set a 2nd timer to remind me to hit the magic button, but from time to time this fails, and on this occasion of yet another ruined roast I am here to reaffirm my 1 star rating.

Al principio tuve dificultades para obtener el grado de tostado que yo quería, pero luego de un tiempo de aprendizaje (y malograr algunos lotes de granos de café) todo es perfecto. Hay un tiempo de aprendizaje, hay que tomarse el tiempo de estudiar, ver videos, etc. para poder dominar las características del Behmor 1600 plus.