Some basic roasting hints, tips and videos
A very basic starter roast in the Gene Cafe roaster is shown below, I was going for a Medium roast (a slightly darkish medium). The initial 250C temperature was purely set for convenience and I was not intending to let the temperature rise above 238 during the roast. I actually trimmed back the temperature from the 238C it did achieve, after about a minute or so of 1st crack. This is to prevent scorching, as the thermal gradient in the roasting chamber becomes quite steep and the beans after the expansion of 1st crack absorb much more of the heat entering the roasting chamber (and less passes out the exhaust). So in reality the bean temperature probably plateaus and doesn't drop, even though the temperature is reduced…..Think of it as reducing the thermal energy input to the roast, rather than temperature.
The ambient temperature was 11C and the mains voltage about 230V-235V variable.
This video (you may need to click the play button twice) is to show you how simple and easy a Gene Cafe roast is and hopefully encourage you to start home roasting. The subtitles all the way through the video explain what's going on during the roast. further information can be obtained by exploring this Wiki.
Yes you do get some smoke (this is unavoidable with any roaster), a simple solution is to roast outside in the garage or shed, or under a very good extractor hood. An even better solution is to buy the large chaff collector which can take a vent hose, and simply vent any smoke out of a window.