Coffee_Noob
New member
And purchased all of the assets of a local coffee shop in my neighborhood. We have a lot of pastries and things, but this is a coffee forum, so I'll stick to that topic. Among the items purchased was an old 1980 Probat GN12 roaster, a Cecilware Venezia espresso machine, a Super Jolly Mazzer grinder, a Grindmaster 875 grinder, three old Hobart grinders (too bad I can't find burrs for these, they're pretty cool looking), and some crappy old plain Bunn drip coffee brewers.
One of the awesome local coffee people came in and convinced me to buy a La Marzocco Linea EE. Also got a fancy Bunn grinder, but I can't recall the model, unfortunately. Also got a new Bunn ICB-TWIN brewer and both this and the La Marzocco are hooked up to a brand new filter. So that's good.
Got new burrs for the Super Jolly. So that's good. Only issue with that is that some of the coffee I roasted ended up slightly dark and the oil from the beans seems to gum it up pretty quickly. I was advised not to put the darker, oilier beans through the SJ, and to leave those for the Grindmaster, which can power through those beans.
Which comes to the roaster. Oh man, there are so many things to know and it's a bit overwhelming. The previous owner of this unit owned it for about 14 years. It's a 12kg machine, so I guess it made sense for him to throw 24 pounds in it? From what I've read, that's a big no no. I should be running it at about maybe 60-70% capacity, so, 16-18 pound batches, right?
So my first roast went like this. The PO told me, "get it up to 400 degrees. Let it preheat for 10-15 minutes at 400. Drop the beans in, and as soon as it hits 435, dump it." That's what he's called a medium roast for 14 years. From what I could tell, it came out a little bit past medium. It was a little darker, but I don't think it was all dark. Some beans had a little oil, some beans did not. And now that I Google it, 435 is about where second crack starts, and this could be called a Full City roast. Whateva.
There's no...adjusting the temperature or airflow at all in the way the guy did his roasting. It was drop it at 400, and as soon as it got to whatever temperature, he'd dump the beans. It seems ridiculously oversimplified and...maybe the word I'm looking for is "careless"?
The PO also said that he had the exhaust cleaned every few months, yet when I disassembled it, there was about 3" of chaff clogging up the exhaust. His roasting practices weren't just careless, they were very dangerous. Exhaust is scheduled to be cleaned tomorrow morning at 8am.
Anybody have some quick advice on roasting? It sounds a bit insane, but this coffee shop is probably going to open in two weeks or less. I have about 700 pounds of coffee to roast between now and then. Going to be interesting. And stressful.
I know, it's a bit ridiculous to make this kind of a purchase without knowing anything about the industry, but this is my wife's dream, so...why not?
One of the awesome local coffee people came in and convinced me to buy a La Marzocco Linea EE. Also got a fancy Bunn grinder, but I can't recall the model, unfortunately. Also got a new Bunn ICB-TWIN brewer and both this and the La Marzocco are hooked up to a brand new filter. So that's good.
Got new burrs for the Super Jolly. So that's good. Only issue with that is that some of the coffee I roasted ended up slightly dark and the oil from the beans seems to gum it up pretty quickly. I was advised not to put the darker, oilier beans through the SJ, and to leave those for the Grindmaster, which can power through those beans.
Which comes to the roaster. Oh man, there are so many things to know and it's a bit overwhelming. The previous owner of this unit owned it for about 14 years. It's a 12kg machine, so I guess it made sense for him to throw 24 pounds in it? From what I've read, that's a big no no. I should be running it at about maybe 60-70% capacity, so, 16-18 pound batches, right?
So my first roast went like this. The PO told me, "get it up to 400 degrees. Let it preheat for 10-15 minutes at 400. Drop the beans in, and as soon as it hits 435, dump it." That's what he's called a medium roast for 14 years. From what I could tell, it came out a little bit past medium. It was a little darker, but I don't think it was all dark. Some beans had a little oil, some beans did not. And now that I Google it, 435 is about where second crack starts, and this could be called a Full City roast. Whateva.
There's no...adjusting the temperature or airflow at all in the way the guy did his roasting. It was drop it at 400, and as soon as it got to whatever temperature, he'd dump the beans. It seems ridiculously oversimplified and...maybe the word I'm looking for is "careless"?
The PO also said that he had the exhaust cleaned every few months, yet when I disassembled it, there was about 3" of chaff clogging up the exhaust. His roasting practices weren't just careless, they were very dangerous. Exhaust is scheduled to be cleaned tomorrow morning at 8am.
Anybody have some quick advice on roasting? It sounds a bit insane, but this coffee shop is probably going to open in two weeks or less. I have about 700 pounds of coffee to roast between now and then. Going to be interesting. And stressful.
I know, it's a bit ridiculous to make this kind of a purchase without knowing anything about the industry, but this is my wife's dream, so...why not?
