Dan, I haven't had espresso making ability in years. But thanks to opening my eyes to the possibility of lighter roasting for that application. "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!" There is my mnemonic for retaining your recommendation, now I'll never forget it.
Swerd, lots of good info, I imagine you must be right about any given machine's idiosyncrasies, but in a number of cases, 2 minutes after the onset of 1C you are already at 2C when using the Behmor at highest heat, including that Peruvian I like.
My line voltage is steady and closer to 119 volts, so I'm lucky that way, and that is a good point to bring up. I've seen some Behmor owners complain about underroasting, and voltage is sure a hot topic. Oh, I'm so punny. Still, I found the Behmor to be very "conservative", and I'm not going to waste people's time here detailing that unless they are very serious about buying one. The few traits I will share: It's quite easy to hear 1C, and even 2C. 1C is always louder than 2C in my experiences. 1C is always similar because it's always H2O and CO2, where 2C is the (individual) bean matrix itself breaking down. It's pretty much always quieter and quicker, I think.
Are there roasting tips given at all on the coffee bags from SM's? The RM labels have mini-descriptions, and always (or at least almost always) give recommendations for roast level. Sometimes it's "city roast is great, but acidity can still hold up to darker roasts" or something like that, to something much more specific like, "we recommend taking this right to the cusp of 2C". One or maybe even possibly two bags even say something like "For Behmor users, we recommend such and such roast profile". I think the next episode of my roasting life will do with shaving small increments off the roast time.
How much degassing time do you guys find you need? I've seen some people say as low as 6 hours, but I'm pretty sure I need at the very minimum an overnight wait, and I'm almost as convinced that even a 2nd day makes it taste better. I'm sure that depends on the bean and roast, but anyway. I did not know AA vs AB was bean size. That makes me wonder what the Peaberry would be.
Oh that Kona was gifted out of nowhere when a mutual friend (who made the whole thing happen, and was the one to hand me the beans) told her how I was getting into roasting. Coincidentally, she is the artist friend that I started a projector thread for some years ago here. Anyway, I just now shot off an email to see what kind of info I could possibly obtain in case anyone here wanted to buy some. I'm not even sure if they're available to normal consumers or not, we will see.
I don't have clever mnemonics for Chiapas and Kenya, but at least I can always dig back into this thread later on. Thank you.
edit: Friend got back to me, I think* she was implying that it's $15/lb, and you weren't kidding about the price!! Oi! I have a phone # now, I can give by PM, but after shipping, my guess is that no one is interested even if the shipping was free. I'll update if info changes. I will say the coffee was totally amazing. But that's pricey.
