best commercial roasting machine brand
- Thread starter eichkei
- Start date
Hi eichkei,
Your question is bound to generate plenty of debate. It depends upon your roasting philosophy. Most specialty coffee roasters roast on a drum roaster, but there are a decent number that roast on a fluid bed. The fluid bed produces a cleaner cup that many claim has a lower acidity. Some even claim fluid beds don't produce any carcinogens, but this claim has no substance behind it. The drum style of roasting can add more complexity to the flavour profile, but the operation can be more complex as well.
For the best drum roaster, if money was no object, I would recommend the Probat P25 fitted with a water quench and profile roasting controls with a VFD on the blower. These roasters are well built with a high resale value and this configuration will allow for dark roasting as well as a high degree of roast profile manipulation. It won't be able to handle the high airflows required for roasting in less than 6 min, but I wouldn't consider this to be specialty coffee. Also, Probat have been around for 150 years and aren't going to disappear in our lifetimes.
Cheers!
Your question is bound to generate plenty of debate. It depends upon your roasting philosophy. Most specialty coffee roasters roast on a drum roaster, but there are a decent number that roast on a fluid bed. The fluid bed produces a cleaner cup that many claim has a lower acidity. Some even claim fluid beds don't produce any carcinogens, but this claim has no substance behind it. The drum style of roasting can add more complexity to the flavour profile, but the operation can be more complex as well.
For the best drum roaster, if money was no object, I would recommend the Probat P25 fitted with a water quench and profile roasting controls with a VFD on the blower. These roasters are well built with a high resale value and this configuration will allow for dark roasting as well as a high degree of roast profile manipulation. It won't be able to handle the high airflows required for roasting in less than 6 min, but I wouldn't consider this to be specialty coffee. Also, Probat have been around for 150 years and aren't going to disappear in our lifetimes.
Cheers!
expat
Member
- May 1, 2012
- 430
- 3
I'm writing this from the standpoint that you are not an experienced roaster (otherwise I don't think you would have phrased your question as you did). So, first off, you said price doesn't matter. Somehow when it comes down to it I think price will matter since roasting machines, for the same size, will vary widely in price. One roaster could be $10,000 and another for the same size could easily be $25,000.
Also talking about 'best roaster' is like talking about most beautiful woman. Everyone is different. Most of the roasters do a pretty good job once you learn the idiosyncrasies of your particular machine. And the more equipmet -- destoner, afterburner; and the more bells and whistles -- computer roast logging, gas controls, etc., the higher the price. Heck, if you need an afterburner that could cost you more than the roaster itself!
So you've got to figure out what your needs are and then find the roaster that best fits those needs. I've been roasting on a basic Ozturk for 4 years, roasting many metric tons of coffee a year and we turn out beautiful coffee but we figure we are just now at the point where we feel we understand enough about 'basic' roasting to start playing with variables such as airflow, heat progression, etc. So all that would have been a waste of money before and now I can either retrofit the control components or buy a bigger roaster with them already installed.
As you can see, the variables are endless. For instance what are your current sales projections? Where do you want to grow to? Answers to questions like that, and many more, will help you find out what the best roaster is for you.
Also talking about 'best roaster' is like talking about most beautiful woman. Everyone is different. Most of the roasters do a pretty good job once you learn the idiosyncrasies of your particular machine. And the more equipmet -- destoner, afterburner; and the more bells and whistles -- computer roast logging, gas controls, etc., the higher the price. Heck, if you need an afterburner that could cost you more than the roaster itself!
So you've got to figure out what your needs are and then find the roaster that best fits those needs. I've been roasting on a basic Ozturk for 4 years, roasting many metric tons of coffee a year and we turn out beautiful coffee but we figure we are just now at the point where we feel we understand enough about 'basic' roasting to start playing with variables such as airflow, heat progression, etc. So all that would have been a waste of money before and now I can either retrofit the control components or buy a bigger roaster with them already installed.
As you can see, the variables are endless. For instance what are your current sales projections? Where do you want to grow to? Answers to questions like that, and many more, will help you find out what the best roaster is for you.
Axel
New member
- Jul 15, 2015
- 32
- 0
What is the drum size(length, width, and wall thickness) in the Probat P25?
