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Hello From Southern Arizona
addertooth
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Posted on 08/04/2022 10:25 PM
*Humor* in Arizona we roast our beans by accidently leaving them on the dash of the car.

My roaster is a 2016 model Gene Cafe, it was purchased Used. It looked like it had *maybe* two roasts done on it. It is the older model which does not have the "nanny" features of the current model. It is the 110V US model, ran on clean power.
All roasting is done outside. A simple Bucket/Colander/shop-vac is used to "quick cool" the beans.

I have been roasting for a bit over two months. A lot of learning has happened in this period.
The various books by Rao and Hoos were purchased, there is a lot of good information in them, but they are more nearly focused on classical drum roasters.

So far my favorite roasts have been a Panama Finca Lerida Geisha, Kona Extra Fancy, and a Kona Peaberry.
Some strong runner-up beans have been an Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Misty Valley, a Kenya AA Select Plus, and a Brazil Pearl Bourbon Peaberry beans.
There have only been a couple of roasts where the results were disappointing (due to operator error/inattention).
There have only been two beans (which due to their limitations) fell far short of the description.

My background for work is Engineering. I understand this particular field is well represented in hobby roasters.
My hobbies have historically been Wine/Beer/Mead brewing, High-End cooking, Grilling, Sous Vide, Machining, Welding, Performance Vehicles.

Current efforts are trying to better Instrument the Gene Cafe roaster. Many will tell you that it can be more difficult to hear first crack on this particular roaster.

Overall, the most common beans roasted are the African beans. Some of the Ethiopians have really amazing fruit flavors. The Panama Geisha and Kona coffees bring significant Floral to the game. A lot of the South Americans bean really bring the Chocolate/Caramel notes. The Jamaica Blue Mountain beans keep waiting in Queue to get roasted, as it has historically been one of my favorites from boutique roasters. I don't want to mess them up. Currently, there are about 15 different bags of green beans stowed in a cool dark place. About 3 of them haven't been attempted yet.

While learning, and for the sake of consistency, each batch has been 227 Grams (One-Half US pound). It also seems a fairly ideal size for the Gene Cafe Roaster. At times I have considered dropping the batch to about one-third pound to see the impact on Rate of Rise, but for now I am sticking with consistent methods.

Picture of last weekend's roast is below. The Rwanda beans had a lot of inconsistencies in size and type. This resulted in a greater variation in roast rate. They are shown in the bottom right.
addertooth attached the following image:
post_roast_6_half_pound_batches.jpg
 
allenb
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Posted on 08/15/2022 6:54 AM
Hi addertooth and a belated welcome to HRO! Glad to hear you are having good success with the Gene and producing good coffee.
Your engineering background will definitely be valuable in this craft and you will most likely be tinkering with roasters and roasting the rest of your life if you're anything like the rest of us. It's a fun and inexhaustible hobby/craft.
I'm guessing most of our Gene users are not regularly checking in hence the lack of a response to your post.

Keep us posted as you wade deeper into the coffee roasting universe and shoot us any questions or interesting findings.
1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana
 
addertooth
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Posted on 08/20/2022 11:16 AM
AllenB,

Thank you for responding. I was out of town on vacation all week, and have just arrived back home. I am also sorry for taking so long to respond.

I will agree that many people probably are active when they first start roasting. Once they get past the initial learning curve, their visits likely taper off. Compounding this is the likelyhood that many may have graduated to other roasting machines over time. I know the Bullet is certainly drawing my interest at this time, but will not be making that purchase any time soon.

There is still a lot to learn on even a basic machine, which will serve me well as I graduate to a higher end machine.
 
michele
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Posted on 01/21/2024 10:04 AM
Hi there, addertooth. I found this post just this morning, as I was searching for Gene things, first time in a while. My Gene and I have almost 800 roasts, and thanks to allenB, Barie, and others here, it's still my only roaster. For now, lol. I can share my experiences, ideas, and more if you (or anyone reading this) would like.
Gene Cafe ca. 2012 (red one!) with lots of replacement parts, Encore Baratza, Clever Dripper, Aeropress, Melitta dripper, Yama siphon, French press
 
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