ROASTERY DESIGNS AND ROASTING MACHINES

Coffee is more than just a commodity, it's part of our life and culture. By now we all know that it's a lot of heard work that goes into the very delicious cup of coffee you are having now or previous.

Today I am going to be talking about so few point about roastery facility and the design, roasting machine and factors to consider for easy operation. and safety (Community & operator)

I have the opportunity to work for a locally coffee roaster manufactural, it was a fun experience and a learn a lot from the technical part (Not entirely. I'm only a Roaster) as we run so many experiment or test building roaster machine.

I love experimenting!!!

Roastery should be design 1st to make the life of the staff or operator easy to be able to carry out he's or her task. An example will be working in a roastery facility where the roasting machine is not on the ground floor and there is no elevator, so come to think of it, having 10 bags of 60kg green bean you need to move upstairs. Work place should be second home, not hell.

Designing a roastery should fit your concept and also take into consideration the health and safety of the staff and operative.

And choosing what machine to buy most time always fall on budget rather than quality. Which ever one is fine but you can still get a quality product or result with small budgets.. Why not start with like a 6kg roasting machine with good quality if your budget wont be able to afford a 15kg roasting machine.. Must of the challenges and trouble from very cheep with high promising result could be avoided just by start with the right quality machine.

Here are few point to consider also:

-Your chimney length and design., if too long, this might result in insufficient exhaust air efficiency and in this case, an external motor from the chimney top will be necessary. And what could be more challenging is have air traveling from the outside into the roastery from the chimney. Colder air will get denser and this will result into humidity, where you might now face rust challenge inside the drum..

Rust from humidity effect from chimney air inlet..

Too cold 16*c roasting room.

-Roasting room temperature control A/C. Green beans temp is one key factor to have consistency (other factor are important as well) Roasting a bean of 23*c will not have same turning point (TP) with bean with 28*c or 18*c. Temperature play an important role and should be monitored closely. The more control you have over temperature the better the result.

-Chaff as a bypass product as not always being a romantic topic, more attentions needs to be pay to chaff same way you care about the smooth decline ROR, especially if you don't have an external cyclone that made it easy for you to remove or monitor chaff capacity more closely. Chaff is very flammable and chaff fire is more difficult to control, chaff box can be contained but super fine chaff particle inside the chimney pipe could make it get out of control. Part of the operation sequence or roastery room check list should contain the checking of the chaff chamber before roasting and depending on the beans processing, you as a roaster should know how many batch per kg you should roast before emptying your chaff, which on the other hand could server as a long BBP, it depends.

-Roasting machine itself (type) could be something to consider, what do you think is the best for you or your roasting style, budget and how well you can manipulate the machine for optimal roast quality. You should always ask WHY. Why I need to get for example a Air roaster, Fluid bed roaster, Drum roaster, Electric roaster. why and how efficient will this make my roaster and the roaster life better and easy....

At the end of the day, your understanding about roasting, modulation, sensory, and how well you can operate the roaster will always help you to make better choice overall. There are endless points we could talk about regarding roastery and designing but not all could be covered, maybe if you have a specific question or enquiry, you can contact me for me clarification or assistance

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/98c808_8bbc47961bff4029a28217ca7c5488ac/480p/mp4/file.mp4

Warming up and moisture disappearance... rust could be removed by roasting first batch darker and not to be consumed...

Thanks for reading. .