Thanks for the reply. I'll be spending a lot of time researching before I buy. I've been reading almost constantly since I posted and am still trying to decide the best route. It looks like the Quest m3 is a great machine and since it's manual and quiet and has a trier should be a great machine. I will not need to do large batches so that's a plus as well. I am finding that it's more involved to get a good roast than I initially thought but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think I will enjoy the experimentation. I'd rather buy a machine that I will be satisfied than end up upgrading every year or two. Still a lot of information to sort though....
On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 11:49 AM, 'Mike Walsh' via Brewtus < [email protected]> wrote: > 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. > -- 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.
