Finally! It took quite a while, but I finally completed the product review I have been working on for the Gene Cafe. Please take a look, feel free to comment and let me know if there is something else that you would like covered.
Gene Cafe Review on Homeroasters.org
Gene Cafe Review on CoffeeGeek
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5 comments:
Eddie,
Thanks for a great review of the Gene Cafe. I got mine about 6 months ago and have roasted about 30 batches. I am really interested in trying your root profile. I am curious how you account for the transition times. For example you say Stage 1 is 5 minutes at 300. Does that include the ramp time to get to 300? I would be interested in profiles that you like for particular coffee varieties. I just got some Harar from Sweet Marias. I think I just over roasted 15.5 minutes at 482.
Thanks Again!
Cheers
Yes, the time includes the ramp up. I preheat the roaster, do an immediate stop, load beans and start the roast at 300F.
Send me an email and I can send you a zip file of some of my logs.
Eddie...that is/was an excellent review of the Gene Cafe.
CLASSIC
Eddie;
Yes, as all have noted: Your review of the Gene Cafe roaster was well prepared. I am a total "newbie" to coffee roasting. In fact, I bet I haven't "ground" more than a couple pounds of coffee in my life (I'm old, 63 - hee, hee).
Basically, I'm retired and was looking for something to do... Learning to roast coffee sounded like a challenge and would be a fun adventure at the same time.
My meager plan is to offer "fresh" roasted coffee to friends, associates and real estate agents (as gifts for their clients, or for themselves). My wife is a Realtor and I have access to a lot of agents in our area (Southern California).
After doing my research I decided on the Gene Cafe roaster and ordered it from Garry Burman at Burman Coffee Traders - ($495/5lbs of Columbian Supremo Valencia/FREE Shipping) - good deal. I talked to Garry on Monday morning (12/10/07) and had my Gene Cafe on Friday. Garry was extremely helpful as I explained my plan and spent about 20 minutes with me on the phone and personally took my order.
In between I ordered some small quantities of different coffees to do some testing (Coffeecorral.com).
Now, after all my tinkering, I think my best avenue as a new "roaster" is to not jump around with a bunch of different beans and concentrate on getting one, like the Columbian Supremo, right - using a couple different roasts to meet peoples fancy. What do you think?
My challenge is determining when to stop the roast - What's new? Still trying to get the swing of hearing the cracks, determining color and stopping the roasting.
Seems like everyone is "stopping" the machine before the cooling process and dumping the beans.
Is anyone doing profiles that include the Gene Cafe cooling cycle? Or is that a no-no for coffee roasters?
So far I've done nine 8oz batches and one 4oz. Burnt, in my opinion, a Kauai peaberry but just ground it up and put it in the "Heavens Forbid", plain 'ole ground coffee can.
My immediate goal is to get where I can duplicate two or three roast levels for a couple different varieties. I believe once I can do that then I can try some other exciting options.
Comments are welcomed, encouraged and invited.
Thank you so much for the compliment; it is greatly appreciated!
Roasting / learning one coffee at a time does have its merits, but don't rule out the benefits of roasting and learning from a variety of beans; you will begin to learn, appreciate and adapt to the individualities of each.
I always cooled externally with the Gene Cafe, but it was because I was always in a hurry. Many people cool in the Gene Cafe and like it just fine; you just have to learn to allow for the "drift" of the roast before the cooling cycle actually halts the roasting process.
To learn a bean well, you might want to roast three consecutive batches of the same bean to City+, Full City & Full City+. Over the next week, brew and taste ("cup") each of them side by side until you run out. You will learn the different roast levels and how the coffees fair as they "rest."
Take some good notes ... I can send you a template if you like ...
You can also download a bunch of my logs at:
http://www.homeroasters.org/php/downloads.php?cat_id=1
(Roasting_Logs_with_Profiles.zip)
Let us know how things go!
Eddie
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