Are today's small batch roasters too inconsistent?

#1: Post by **Almico** » August 28th, 2018, 5:51 pm

I've had time to ponder my decision of buying a relatively inexpensive used drum roaster, and the real reason is that there really isn't a machine made that I would feel confident in using effectively right out of the box. I had the nagging sensation that all of them would need a certain amount of "upgrading" in order to produce the exactness of roast control that I was looking for. Even the all mighty Loring Smart Roast, while doing a lot for energy savings, does not guarantee a perfectly repeatable roast every time.*

It was refreshing, if not plain sad, to read Jim Hoffmann's post espousing a similar sentiment. Here's a blogpost bemoaning the inadequate machines and hinting the dirty little secret of small batch coffee roasting:

https://jimseven.com/2017/11/24/dear-co ... facturers/

I am embarrassed. Not by the coffee we roast, but by the machines we use to roast it. They are beautiful, vintage machines that were crafted with skill and care 50 years ago from materials clearly built to last. However, they highlight the utter absence of innovation we've seen from roasting manufacturers in the decades since....

....There is an opportunity here. It would require R&D spending, it would require experimentation and resources. I believe that there is a very large audience out there looking for something better and willing to spend sensibly to achieve that. This is an industry ripe for disruption.

* Moderator note: This thread is split off from the one where Alan is upgrading a drum roaster for his coffee business.

My "new" 5kg Turkish roaster has arrived

#2: Post by **drgary** » August 28th, 2018, 6:35 pm

Alan, I wonder if Hoffman's concerns hold up if a roaster is kept in a temperature and humidity controlled environment and if the greens are charged with the same moisture content and temperature?

August 28th, 2018, 8:52 pm

I think his point, and it's hard to argue with, is that will all the amazing technological advances that have been made in this world over the past 50 years, how come none of it has been applied to small batch coffee roasters? Is this really the pinnacle of what can be done roasting coffee. I think not.

But to his point, if people keep paying stupid money for Probat coffee roasters, why should things change?

When I look at what's inside a drum coffee roaster, it's really hard to justify the cost. You can buy a new car for $20,000. Compare the tech and parts and labor and R&D and EPA restrictions and safety concerns in manufacturing a car to a $20K 25kg coffee roaster. He's right, it's embarrassing for the roasting manufacturing community.

The argument used to be that it's due do the relatively low volume of small coffee roaster sales, but that is quickly becoming a poor excuse. Small micro roasters are popping up all over the place and coffee roaster sales are at an all time high. I agree with Mr. Hoffmann's point that this industry is "ripe for disruption".

#4: Post by **TomC** » August 29th, 2018, 2:58 am

Almico wrote:I agree with Mr. Hoffmann's point that this industry is "ripe for disruption".

I think he's got a pretty accurate finger on the pulse of the industry. Some developers are thinking out of the box though, and are bringing to market exactly what James is asking for, albeit in a package that may shock some.

Although I still wish someone with deep pockets would back Jay Endres' design that marries many great features of traditional drum roasters with advanced designs from Loring. For now, it sits quietly waiting on nothing more than CAD files on floppy disks.

Bella Taiwan makes a 1 kilo roaster with all the bells and whistles a small scale roaster could dream of, and they have what, close to 20 years now of R&D? I wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy a Feima Pro 1 kilo for $10,000 before buying a Probatino for $13,000.

The quality is out there, and there's plenty of small scale Asian roasters that are adopting these high quality Taiwanese machines. We just don't hear about them too much unless it's from Hankua or Chang00. And I know Henry (Chang00) is delighted still with his Mini500. The machines are damn near bulletproof. The quality is there, the reliability is there, the R&D that brought many higher tech advancements are there, but it's still expensive. We're probably too Euro -American centric, focusing on what we know (Probat, SF, etc), whereas I'd guess that in Asian roasting communities/forums, those great Asian roaster manufacturers get a great deal of attention.

#5: Post by **mathof** » August 29th, 2018, 6:32 am

I don't know if the technology can be scaled up, but my Ikawa Home Roaster reproduces 50g loads seemingly exactly in taste, by following a predetermined curve. FC,for instance, recurs within seconds batch after batch.

Matt

#6: Post by **hankua** » August 29th, 2018, 1:10 pm

Although I still wish someone with deep pockets would back Jay Endres' design that marries many great features of traditional drum roasters with advanced designs from Loring. For now, it sits quietly waiting on nothing more than CAD files on floppy disks.

What is the general idea of this design?

Bellweather's roaster and marketing is very interesting. Can a store set up a machine where consumers can press a button and get light/medium/dark roasted single origin coffee? It was mentioned a large grocery store chain had placed an order, what about smaller Artisan coffee shops and roasteries?

August 29th, 2018, 1:37 pm

My issue is not necessarily from an automation stand point. I'm not looking to take the craft out of roasting. On the contrary, I'm looking to get more craft into roasting great coffee. But in order to do that, we need better data and better control.

I just read an article in the Sept/Oct issue of Roast Magazine: "The Data Revolution", by Chris Hallien of Cropster. It's all about the importance of data collection, from greens to roast profiles. This is all well and good, but it neglects to mention that all this roast data is based on a very fallible little BT probe swimming in a shower of beans and yielding very limited data at best and completely misleading data at worst.

I'm not an physicist, or engineer, or clever inventor. But I can't believe there is not a better way to measure bean development in the roast chamber and not have to wait until the roast is over to see how close we got to our target.

I mentioned in another thread that one day, when roast color analyzers are a dime a dozen, roasters will finally have to answer to their customers, "how come XYZ coffee was an Agtron 55/62 last week and it's 54/64 this week?"

Light, medium and dark roast labels mean very little. Why don't we insist on roast development numbers, like roast dates, right on the bag? That would change things in a hurry. Better yet, print a little label of the entire roast profile along with the RDN!

August 29th, 2018, 1:53 pm

hankua wrote:What is the general idea of this design?

Bellweather's roaster and marketing is very interesting. Can a store set up a machine where consumers can press a button and get light/medium/dark roasted single origin coffee? It was mentioned a large grocery store chain had placed an order, what about smaller Artisan coffee shops and roasteries?

I thought about offering on-demand roasted coffee to my retail bean customers. But roasting 1# at a time is just not efficient. I have my name on a January build Cormorant roaster and am still thinking seriously about putting it on the coffee bar. Of course it will be more for show and tell than productively roasting coffee for customers.

The problem with the Bellwether model is efficiency. What happens when two people want two different coffees at the same time? How about 3? It still takes ~10 minutes to roast coffee. In this mad rush of a world, how many people are going to wait around while their coffee roasts?

And if customers are using it in a market setting, is it a one profile fits all scenario? Or do customers get to pick their own profile?! Whoa!

#9: Post by **drgary** » August 29th, 2018, 1:54 pm

Alan,

For small batch roasting, really boutique roasting for your cafe, is precise repeatability as important as consistent quality? I'm thinking of times I go for a special meal at a favorite restaurant. I'm not thinking about whether the food is perfect versus whether it's delicious. Even with favorite dishes, if the chef's technique is consistent and the ingredients are fresh, it's repeatable enough for my tastes. I corresponded with Jim Schulman to get his take on the topic and he said I could quote him here:

another_jim wrote:An Italian or Dutch Old Master ground and mixed their pigments by hand. They were appallingly inconsistent in their world and in their paintings, never the same masterpiece twice, and some distinctly worse that others. How awful! The same is true of furniture makers, gold smiths, violin makers, even carpenters and smiths.

Consistency is a value of mass production, not of craft production. The rant shows the complete disconnect between the current generation of specialty coffee talking heads and any appreciation of technological history.

This is also true of coffee history. Perfectly repeatable roasters have been made since the 1940s (the Burns Thermalo). They are large scale and used for coffee mass producers. The same manufacturers who made these made shop roasters that had learning curves of years and required apprenticeships to use properly.

First you learn how to run a few fairly consistent profiles with minimal control inputs. That takes a few months. Then you learn how to end the roast by the smell and appearance of the beans in the tryer. That takes a few years. The result is utterly inconsistent roasts, but mostly better and always more interesting than the consistent industrial roasters.

Part of the disaster of "third wave roasts" is that instrumental controls have become cheap, and "roasting science" has become even cheaper. These have replaced smelling and inspecting the roasted beans and improvising accordingly.

In this light, is the reading from a BT probe sufficient to be indicative so that you can be consistent enough? Given the complexity of coffee, can any measurement outside of a laboratory tell you how it will smell and taste? How much of tuning a roast is repeatability versus getting it in the range where that coffee will show desirable characteristics? Coffee's variability continues to impress me -- that slight changes in roasting or brewing or the amount of time it's rested or the humidity on that particular day -- can bring out desirable but slightly different characteristics. If the roaster is paying attention and is experienced in the craft, will the result be consistently excellent?

August 29th, 2018, 2:03 pm

That sounds like the same old tired excuse for not being able to produce consistent coffee. Call it arts and crafts and it's OK. (Love you, Jim!

)

But most coffee drinkers want consistency. How else can you explain why the majority of coffee consumers still line up at Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts by the millions?

And I bet if you ask 1000 of the top small batch roasters if they would prefer more exacting control over their roasters, and be able to produce exactly the roast they intended all of the time, 1001 would say yes.