New to Coffee Roasting: Learning the Gene Cafe CBR-301 One Roast at a Time

Related videos: 👉 Gene Café CBR 301 at Full Capacity | A 300g Reference Roast    • Gene Café CBR 301 at Full Capacity | A 300...   👉 When Should You Stop a Coffee Roast? (Without Trusting First Crack)    • When Should You Stop a Coffee Roast? (With...   I’m very new to coffee roasting, and also a relatively late arrival to the world of specialty coffee. This video is the start of a slow, deliberate attempt to understand the Gene Cafe CBR-301 properly, without rushing to conclusions or pretending to know more than I do. I’m using the CBR-301 not because I’ve compared every roaster on the market, or because I think it’s objectively “the best”, but simply because it’s the machine I bought and have. What surprised me quite quickly is how little clear, practical information there is about this roaster, especially this newer model, and particularly from people who are still learning it. So this series is exactly that: me learning this machine carefully, in public, one roast at a time. In this first video, I talk about: Why a lot of roasting advice didn’t quite line up with my early experience on the Gene Cafe How trying to apply borrowed “rules” created more confusion than clarity Why I’ve decided to slow down and focus on understanding the machine on its own terms What this series is, and very deliberately, what it isn’t This is not a tutorial series. It’s not best practice. And it’s definitely not expert advice. I’ve only just reached double digits in terms of roasts, and I’ve only roasted one coffee so far. What I am trying to do is document a careful learning process: paying attention to what actually happens during a roast, questioning assumptions, and being honest about uncertainty. If you’re also new to roasting or if you have a Gene Cafe and feel like most advice doesn’t quite land, I hope this feels relatable rather than instructive. In the next video, I’ll talk about how this roaster actually heats coffee, and why understanding that mattered more than I expected. This series is simply where I am right now with this machine. If my thinking changes as I learn more, I’ll say so. Thanks for watching