Air roasted or drum roasted?

[phaelon56]

Two things I forgot to mention. One is that the airflow is predetermined by Sivetz based on the size of roaster (but I will be tweaking this). Second is cooling. They really need to add a paddle to the cooling tray but it's as wide and a bit deeper than the average comparable sized drum roaster cooling tray. We use a 15 second water spritzx that automaticalluy activates whent he beans hit target in to four internal temp and then they are manually discharged into the bean. An extremely powerful blower sucks air throught the beans and the perforated meatl screen inthe base of the cooling bin. Bean roasted to temps in the mid 440's are totally cool in approximately three to four minutes.

I'm not claiming that fluid bed is superior to drum roasting but I respectfully contend that it's not fair to disparage it until you leanr more about it. Sivetz is in fact the leading producer of small to mid sized commercial fluid bed roasters and it's worth learning about them and sampling a few coffees produced by an experienced roaster with a properly modified and controlled Sivetz. I doubt that it will change your mind but it may alter your opinion in some ways.

 

[MAXTOR]

Thanks for the info on the Sivetz roaster, sounds pretty poor to me.
Would be interesting to know what happened to your longer roast and if it really was superior.
I agree it would not make sense to talk about consumer type of roasters, although I will build one next year if I have time, but it will also not have a profile feature.
But it will have a proper temperature control and a programmable temperature and timing feature.
My commercial roasters are doing well and I will add on 2 models beginning of next year.
Anyway, let me know and thanks for the info.

Maxtor

 

[deferio]

Hey Owen,
I just wanted to chime in and say that...having tasted many different espressos from the big guns in the industry that swear by drum roasters....ie: vivace, vita, etc. I definetly prefer an air roasted coffee ....especialy as espresso. We use a quarter bag sivets here and the process is not a walk away and your beans are done process...it is very hands on. I feel that the air roasted espresso develops the high end...good acidity and sweetness that drum roasting tends to bake out due to a roast time that is twice as long. I believe that it must be developed more but in the end side by side. I believe air roasted coffee is superior and as the cusumer gets more in the way of choice in the matter they will begin to agree. BTW how many here have tested their preference for drum roasted coffee against a comprable air roasted coffee? It sounds to be that those with such strong opinions against air roasting have had little to no experience with it and have always drum roasted...just cause it -was- the accepted method. And it the words of Ben Harper...
Don't knock it till you try it first.
-C.D.

 

[JavaQueen]

I've had both, and I like both very much. I got coffee from both Intellisgentsai and The Roasterie to compare.
I think I might actually lean towards the air roasted. I don't think air roasted coffee lacks depth at all.
To each his/her own.

 

[mrman]

I'm probably going to expose my ignorance here but what the heck . I recently purchased some coffee that was freshly roasted in-store on a trip through Sebastapol, CA. They had a machine I had never seen before that roasted it right there. All I can say is that it was fantastic! I don't think I've really had truly "fresh coffee" before. I asked about the process and I don't think the operator really knew that much. Apparently the roaster doesn't require any venting and he said that the roasting was controlled by a computer and a laser beam??? :shock: Sounded a little farfetched to me. Could this be correct? It appeared to be a hot air roaster but the guy said it was a drum roaster. I think it might have been a combination and it was definately electric. Bottom line is that the beans were more uniformly roasted than any I have ever seen. Anyone have any insight? I wish I had taken down the name of the company. The logo on the machine was a steaming coffee cup.

 

[MAXTOR]

Was it this logo on the machine?

How big was the machine?

Regards Maxtor

 

[mrman]

Maxtor,

No that wasn't the logo. I'm going to drive back to that store and find out more. It's making me nuts. :lol:

The machine was big. About six feet tall and four feet square. About the size of a big refrigerator with a big glass "merry-go-round" (for lack of a better term) on top that stores different bean varieties. It spins around and drops the selected beans into the drum. It was really cool to watch. The guy did one roast while I was there (I think he was showing off :grin: ). He pushed maybe three buttons on the computer (obviously it has a touch screen computer) and the thing started whirring and turning and blended three different beans automatically and then started to roast. Nine minutes later there were five pounds of perfectly roasted coffee (French) of which I walked out with two! The other curious thing...no smoke! No venting, afterburner, chimney, ducting, etc. There was a little smoke in the tray where the beans came out but I watched as some sort of vacuum sucked it right back into the machine before any escaped past the glass covered tray. It was very cool. 8)

Now the other question I have. The guy in the store said I should let the beans "de-gas" for 24 hours. Is this really necessary? I didn't and made two pots today. It tasted pretty darn good to me and the wife said it was the best she's ever had (coffee that is... ) and she's Italian! For the record I think it was a custom blend of papua (sp?), jamaican blue and sumatra. Wasn't cheap either but boy is it good! I've heard about the degassing thing before but I guess I've never had the opportunity to take home coffee fresh right from the roaster even at my regular place that uses a Probot (sp?).

Regards

 

[MAXTOR]

Tell me was it this machine?

As for the degassing, you dont need to, it is good for the aroma (smell) of the roasted beans to develop and takes about 16 - 24 hours but I also enjoy freshly roasted, specially espresso.

regards

Maxtor

 

[mikedard]

Who makes that roaster in the picture??

OK please, please tell me this is a real roaster and where I can find it. Thanks so much for your thread. I keep rereading it and each time I learn something else. Also do you have a roaster? Is this it?

mikedard

 

[Sinister703]

Hi the one 2 posts above is by www.novopack.de but there site is not working (maybe just today?) and I think the one you are talking about is the Javamaster air roaster:
http://www.javamasters.com/mainFrame.htm

Drums just look SO much cooler! I ordered one and maybe I'll wont have to listen to Tophers incessant praising of Ambex roasters any longer (I did get the Ambex, Topher ) :lol:

 

[rollman]

The drums

I have been seeing drum roasters that have touch screen programing and
profiling for years. The machines feature wide adjustable airflow and burner outputs that allow the amount of heat and the transfer method of the heat to be varied during the roast. Many have stainless drums and can be fitted with remote heating chambers. Also many of these machines can do batches that are 5-10 percent of full load. I have tasted some great coffee that was roasted in 6 min. in a drum roaster like this.

Mr. Sivetz has done alot for the small roasters woldwide and NeoTec has taken his design of the air roaster to an "State of the Art controlled machine". This machine is used by many large corperations.
Gothot has also built air roasters and durms with high air flow type systems for years and yes even the American made 100 year Burns coffee roasters have one.

I would love to work with Micheals roaster and soup it up and I will talk with him again in Seattle as he is a personal freind of mine. He is an Old Fellow but I darn any body to take him on. The Drum Roaster guys hide from him. His Roaster is carefully made but he has not moved over to modern methods ot controls yet... I;;m sure that several people are talking to him. I would be glad to help him out.

Back to the Drums, with the coming of the PLC to the Drum Roaster and the ratio controled burners and fans it can not be said that the drum is any dirtier then the Air Roaster as I have seen plenty of Air roasters that had caked up drums and a few that even caught fire in the drum (or roasting chamber if it is to be called that). If you are only to look at the simpliest of the drum designs yes they are simple but a lot of guys like the taste of them!

I think I'm a chef also the cook out kind.

My favorite type of food is like they cooked a zillion years a ago
RED MEAT ON a open fire and If I'm camping out I think that it tastes better if I eat it with my fingers! But I would never reccommend it on a coffee roaster.. I will wash my hands first!

 

[BeanGrinder]

Can I whip this dead horse on one more point? I don't think the practical aspects of roasters has been addressed much here. I have MANY things to pay attention to as a coffee shop operator. I roast coffee for my shop as well as bagged coffee sales and so on. Here's my point...

I started my shop with the Monster/Sonofresco. Nice - folks could watch their coffee roast and it got some attention. Then, one day the controller board blew out - no idea what happened. I was dead in the water. Next, the chaff collector (a glass container) broke and OUCH was that expensive to replace. The next thing to go was the delicate temp sensor on top. I just finished replacing that $75+shipping part. All of this within the first six months of owning this brand new technology. And cleaning? Jeez...this fluid bed roaster is nice, but you have to give it a sponge bath after almost every batch. After a couple of batches of espresso roast I have to take it apart and fully clean the whole thing! Especially the heat sensor...that is so delicate and yet MUST stay clean - build up on that probe will really throw off the roasting process. It's vulnerable, too...a tiny wire probe in the upper stack of the roaster. I can see how it is really easy to break. All of that to roast a 1.3lb batch of coffee.

I needed more capacity and bought a (nostalgic?) drum roaster. I have to say that I feel like I'm more in control of the roasting process. There is very little maintenance - I open the screw-down trap doors and vacuum out the chaff once in a while. Every other days I wipe out the cooling tray with a little PuroCaf solution. That's it. Now I'm roasting 4.75lbs per batch - I allow space for expansion, even though the capacity is 5lbs.

But here's the real cincher. My customers did not know that I had started serving drum roasted coffee, but the comments started coming in. Some of the regulars wanted to know if we had switched their coffee on them - because they really liked this new stuff! One customer actually said, "The taste of this coffee has more depth of flavor." Another customer said the exact same thing, only used the word "dimension". Why? I'm guessing it has to do with variable degree of pyrolysis in the beans. It is not as evenly roasted, which is why there is a more varied flavor. In a sense it's like post-roast blending two or three roast levels of the same bean, instead of having just one uniform degree of roasting.

I have to admit, I prefer the drum roasted coffee. At Topher's suggestion two months ago, I did a blind taste test and I could tell a difference. I had to try it - otherwise I'd be stuck with the nostalgia of the shiny metal drum and never know the "truth".

But the point of this long dissertation is to say that, for the vast majority of my customers, air roasted coffee is fine. There are a few who know coffee well enough to notice the difference, but they never complained about the air roasted beans to begin with. No, the point of my post is that there is room in the world for both types of roasters and not just room in a museum. Further, when considering a roaster, some consideration has to be given to the attention that the roaster will require and the cost to maintain it. I had a college kid working with my fluid bed roaster, but now I don't trust anyone to use it but me. I can't afford for it to be handled in the same fashion as the drum roaster.

But this will all be a moot point soon...I'm designing a fluid-bed / drum roaster...the best of both worlds! Hey, Maxtor...want to help me build it? I got the idea the other day when my wife made me do my own laundry. A perforated drum with forced hot air! I think I feel a new forum thread coming on..."Coffee Roasting in your Maytag"!

 

[rollman]

air in the drum

Bean Grinder,
Thank you for the input and the over view of this thread as I’m getting lost.
I was thinking that it might be an info-commercial.
The 100-year-old Jabez burns machine started off close to this
maytag type design. Then they started to recirculation of the heat to
save some money on gas.. Roasters like you are talking about are
being built today. The problem with the perforated drums is that they
get a build up of oils on the oil side of the drum that can cause a fire.
Some roaster makers have made modifications that make this not very common.
Solid drum Roasters can have high air flow. The heating needs to be different as the open flame underneath the drum when turned up high enough for the increased air flow over heats the drum.. Forced heat from a power burner is the way the most expensive machines are going to. By controlling the about of heat that gets on the drum and the airflow removed from the roaster you can expect to be able to tune for taste.

I have been seeing roasters with a touch screen PLC that also includes profiling and manual- semi-auto control will allow you to tune the roaster then let some one else run the machine on semi-auto for a few batches if you need to. The screen is used also, to look up what you did on that last roast and save it to a profile if you like the results or to modify it.

Roasting machine options are starting to be very interesting. Controls, burners and methods of roasting all need to be considered. Like the cell phone to the desk phone, some are more expensive but worth every penny if you need it. This is not a $200 microwave you are using to run a company so the lowest cost machines can cost you money. If you really need the production sometimes it is best to pay for larger or then more expensive models if possible. The fancier ones can cost so much you cannot even get started! I would not carry my 3-year on the back of my moped in freeway traffic! But it is fine for me to run to the neighborhood store 3 blocks away.
I like both types of roasters as you do! I think that Monster is one track with the improvements in operation of the machine. Only time will tell

I did read something about a microwave roaster somewhere? Any one tried this?

 

[Chris Kay]

Re: air in the drum

I did read something about a microwave roaster somewhere? Any one tried this?

I know someone who has, hes been given 18 months to 2 yrs.
Personally i wouldnt go near a microwave roaster...

 

[rollman]

nuked coffee

I know someone who has, hes been given 18 months to 2 yrs.
Personally i wouldnt go near a microwave roaster...[/quote]

Tell the story! PLease!
It might be a little on the FAR SIDE!

But if it costs more then a hot air dryer they are in trouble
as it really works!
That came after the (gas) oven for me.