We Got a Roaster!

I know, I know... We're a coffee roastery, so having a coffee roaster is a no brainer. Well for one, my brain ain't that good. Two, we're just super excited to be able to take a green to cup all on our own so let us have this one!

For those who haven't listened to us talk about it at length in natural conversation, we got ourselves the Aillio Bullet roaster to be our main production roaster to start off. We decided to go with the bullet so that we could get professional results with a small footprint that was able to roast enough coffee at once to at least be more than a bag at a time. The Bullet also has a history of being a sample roaster for larger roasteries, so we figured it was a good investment up front that we would then be able to use for a different purpose down the road.

Getting used to the bullet took a few cycles, but now that we know what we're looking at, things are becoming a lot more clear.

Just to start off, we got 6 different coffees in order to see how our new roaster performed and what kind of coffee we thought was the tastiest coming out of it. After a few seasoning roasts we were ready to start dialing things in and developing different profiles for the beans to experiment with what we have.

Here's a few things that I've noticed so far

1) I stopped smoking years ago...

During the seasoning roasts for the bullet, you of course keep you dump speed high and just ride with you fan on low. Unfortunately, during my first round of batches post season, I neglected to adjust the fan. Initially I thought things were going great because I was able to dial in a roast curve pretty much exactly how I wanted it just putting my finger on the power up and (almost exclusively) down (I may experiment with a pyramid for something like an roast intended for espresso or something like that but I'm starting high and working my way down at the moment). Great news at first so I was feeling pretty high on myself for a couple day while I let the coffee rest. When it came to the cup though, these roasts came across as extremely full bodied, murky, a little smoky, and almost musty. Lots of words that end in "y" and none of the were "clarity." I tell you what though, I felt pretty dumb when I realized, of course it's murky and musty, you threw a smokers jacket on it and sent it to the bar with a pipe and too much free time, of course it's going to come back like that! Since then, we've adjusted the flow to pump a lot more heat in there while dialing up to a pretty high airflow in and around first crack to evacuate as much smoke as possible from the chamber to try and increase clarity. Is this the absolute best technique, who knows... but for sure, you taste the different in the cup!

2) Maybe 5lbs is too large of a sample

I'll be honest, I don't not know what I'm doing, but I also don't exactly have 40 years of experience under my belt roasting coffee and what to expect. I wanted to get 6 different beans so we got 5lbs of each, figuring some would go to seasoning, sampling, profiling, and a few other things. This is also pretty much true, but I don't think I needed to get all that at the same time. I'll get some nice practice just roasting in general, but there might be a bean or two that I just didn't vibe with and a smaller sample could've saved me the hassle. It's not like the coffees were crazy expensive (I'm not buying 5lb samples from Hawaii or anything), but there's defiantly some that I don't personally care to drink 5lbs worth...

3) My garden beds are now officially sponsored by chaff.

I'm not sure if I just think about my plants too much, but one day I think it would be fun to sell boosted soil with coffee chaff in it... It is a great way to get nutrients into your garden and it's also a great use of a part of the bean that is normally discarded, so putting it to a good use elsewhere seems awesome to me! If you are ever at our house for a cup of coffee, you can look out and know that even the Lilac is fueled by coffee.

4) Every roast feels like Christmas Eve

Coffee roasting isn't exactly the table side activity for immediate service. I spent years in the bartending and mixology world and have always gotten feedback pretty immediately on my job performance on a particular task. With coffee needed at least 8hrs before cupping and 3+ days to rest before brewing, you kinda just have to be satisfied with the process and idea of the cup rather than the more instant gratification of being a mixologist or barista. At first, this kinda just felt like every roast was just creating anticipation and excitement for what I could do in the future... but the key word being future. If anything though, I think it's just teaching patience. If not given a barrier, you might see me up for a week straight because I wanted to dial in the perfect curve for a new bean so I roasted, brewed, and daisy chained dozens of batches.

Overall

Hey, I'm having fun and now that I'm not choking the coffee to death with their own smoke, the coffee is tasting chefs kiss noice! I look forward to really working hard to refine each and every bean we put out so we can start to get some tasty cups to all of your lips!