HI All,
I am planning to start a coffee business this year and my business plan incorporates a roaster into the equation. Roasting coffee is something I have never done so a big learning curve ahead. The coffee will be served fresh or sold as beans or grounds. I would expect to sell between 20-30kgs of coffee beverages per week, and not sure how much in beans. The volume is based on what the business would need to achieve, rather than actual figures, since this is a start up business. In my online research, I have read comments that small roasters are inefficient unless price of coffee is high. I have also seen a few online businesses using 2lb roasters and serving fresh roasted coffee however that could just be for advertising purposes to sell 2lb roasters. I understand as in most situations that big machine=better productivity and therefore less likely is need for upgrades in the short term. My fear is that a mistake could see 20kgs of coffee reduced to waste. I am interested to hear from anyone who has such a business and can offer advice on either brand or size of coffee roaster and coffee roasting course.

Typically, a successful single site cafe-roaster will have a five pound drum roaster; although I know a few with ten pound roasters if they sell a lot of bagged whole bean coffee as well. They generally place the roaster in the sight of customers, since it adds to the ambiance.

I don't know any successful cafes that use the frequently advertised two pound automatic air roasters. This may sound kind of obvious, but given some of the marketing to prospective cafe owners, it seems to need saying: a person who can't roast will not be successful roasting coffee. To a customer walking in, these roasters will look like silly contraptions, not like real coffee roasters; and that will reflect on you even if you did know how to roast.

I agree fully with Jim. A small drum in the shop gives the impression I imagine you are after. Coffee is as much about selling an experience as it is a cup or bag.

As a pro roaster, I suggest the smallest roaster that will work for your needs as experience alone will drive quality and allow growth. Cart vs. Horse. A San Franciscan sample roaster is worth considering; you'll want one to guide coffee buying decisions even if most of your roasting is done on a larger roaster. Using this little roaster would mean 20hrs/week in roasting to keep up with 30kg's, but that's a great opportunity to learn the craft and justify the purchase before scaling up. There are always other wholesalers to fill in some of your coffee placements if necessary. There's not a lot of margins, so it wouldn't affect your bottom line substantially, and would serve as a means to keep your palate in check. (seriously, tasting your own coffee all the time is not advised).

endlesscycles wrote:I agree fully with Jim. A small drum in the shop gives the impression I imagine you are after. Coffee is as much about selling an experience as it is a cup or bag.

...

I am neither a commercial roaster nor a retailer. I think a shop is sufficiently complex to design, build out, staff with quality employees, open, and grow without roasting. From a customer who studies retail coffee delivery (and homeroaster's) point of view, I would suggest reevaluating the need to roast from the get-go. Find 5 top-flight coffee roasters and rotate their coffees through the shop. Initiate roasting when cash flow/sales/demand for wholesale accounts warrant.

Learning to roast while opening a shop is a hurdle you don't need to face with a start-up. My $.02AUD.

B|Java

As a novice home roaster I agree with boldjava...
After a 15 years hobby of espresso drinking at home, I decided to try my hand at roasting. I have to say it is quite complex and I only try to roast for espresso... this would be even more complex if I was trying to roast for drip as well.
When I first started to pull espresso I was overwhelmed with all the variables, water temp, grind, dose, tamp pressure, milk temperature, milk consistency you get the picture... I now face the same challenges while learning to roast... Volume, load temperature, length of drying phase, temperature rate of rise for the ramp up phase, slowing down the roast during first crack, knowing when the first crack end, distinguishing first/second crack and more. I would not want to learn/experiment all this while working at opening a new business and training employees. Most peoples I know have requested to buy some of my fresh roasted coffee, after roasting well over 10lbs I am not even close to be confident enough to sell any. So you know, I have thrown 4lbs in the compost bin... I must say that I enjoy the challenge greatly and I am extremely fussy about my coffee.
Probat offer courses,
http://www.probatburns.com/training/index.php
They also make a 1kg roaster that would come with a wealth of support... I have never seen or dealt with that company it is just an example of many out there...
I am envious, would be so much fun starting a business in the coffee industry.

Yesterday, James Freeman of Blue Bottle Coffee was talking with us about getting his company started from scratch in a small storage shed using an IR-7. He apparently still holds the company record for consecutive roasts, having to roast for over 17.5 hours straight, one roast after another, back to back, 53 roasts when business started picking up and he had to meet the new demand.

He mentions it in his book as well. Quite an interesting person in many regards and it was quite fun to hear him speak.

HA! I've got 100 roasts ahead of me for an order due Tuesday at 5pm. Thankfully I roast much faster than he did then and cool simultaneously. 17.5 hours is superhuman.

He was/is a strong advocate of never roasting at capacity. When he mentioned his IR-7 giving him 5 lbs of finished product per roast, for a moment I started suspecting my own memory as faulty, that the 7 might have meant "pounds" all these years not "kilos", but it was a 7 kilo roaster. I wish I could pull it up on their site for verification, but the only one I found with a cursory search were the 1, 2.5, 5 and then it jumps to 12, and all appear to be kilo rated.

So part of that was lower batch sizes for optimal control. He is an impressive perfectionist, but approaches coffee completely different than any other roaster I've talked to. Likely in a good way. More on that later...

I'll be starting a separate thread in the next few days about his ( and his head roaster Jen Apodaca's)lecture. It was refreshing, enlightening, and vastly different from many of the things we think we know. Not a dogma per se, just an approach that works for them.

It will for the most part, only be relevant to gas drum roasters however. People like yourself who are already experts or professionals should easily be able to extrapolate most of the concepts for a fluid bed roaster and determine for yourself whether or not its useful information. I just hope I can remember it all. I should have worn a wire

So the lecture was THAT good? It would be great to hear about it. Always good to learn more!

Ive been roasting for a year and a half. Only recently did I gain the consistency to get what I want out of the coffee every time, and I know theres still more I need to learn. Do you have experience in coffee other than roasting? If you don't, you may want to think hard about how you will handle just running the bar on start up.

Dont sell your coffee pre-ground, you dont want that image.