I started with a modified popcorn popper where I could switch in and out both the high temp and the low temp heating coils and could control the fan. It took me maybe two hours and $25 in parts from Radio Shack. I wish I could point you to the info, but that was years ago. If you have a variac around you can get even more heat control, but just being able to switch the high and low coils in and out was enough for me to stretch roasts between 1st and 2nd crack, etc.
I got VERY good coffee, including espresso, out of that setup, but ultimately the capacity wasn't high enough for my needs. I would not use an unmodified popper, but I'm sure you can probably find some decent info out there still on mods (I just did a Google and there are tons of pages still). The big benefit of using a popper for some time is that you can very easily probe the bean mass, smell it, see it, hear it. You really learn, understand, and recognize all the roasting stages. Once you move to a more closed roaster, you are going to need all that experience because your sensory information is going to be reduced. If for no other reason than that, I'd do 10-20 popper roasts. I've been on a Behmor 1600 since virtually the day they came out, and I get very good roasts, including pushing into light Vienna for espresso. Recently I upgraded to the new control panel and the side panel with the fan. In my experience, the Behmor is a bargain of a roaster and you get good results, but do make sure that you regularly clean the inside as well as doing minor disassembly and really clean the fans well. For whatever reason, if I get more than minimal buildup on my fans the roaster doesn't work nearly as well. On Monday, September 26, 2016 at 11:06:19 AM UTC-4, bmacpiper wrote: > > Hey Herman, > I used to roast a lot, and really enjoyed it. I’ve gone through a few > roasters and my last was/is a hottop. It was really good, and I hear great > things about the behmor also. > In my opinion, using a popcorn popper to decide if you like roasting would > be like using Folger’s to decide if you like espresso. You need to have a > decent tool to get the good result, and if you use a crappy tool you can’t > really conclude you don’t like the result. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
