Coffee is ME - Start Your Coffee Business

What is the Ideal Size of a Coffee Roaster, Can You Save Past Crop Coffee, Drum Speed, Mimicking Espresso and more ...

 

In this podcast, we will revisit the question of what is the ideal size of the roaster one should buy for their coffee roasting startup. You can find my old article here:

https://coffeecourses.com/buying-a-coffee-roaster-here-are-few-considerations-so-you-do-not-get-burned/

We also got a few questions from you! Thanks! We feel your questions make this podcast more dynamic. Keep them coming, please.

1

Love the podcast!

I have a question about adjusting a roasting profile as a coffee ages. We’ve had a few coffees that started out wonderful and juicy, but as the enter or near the ‘past crop’ zone start to taste woody, papery, or sometimes underdeveloped, any advice on how to adjust our profiles? 

thanks

Matt, Matthew Schodorf

Founder / Roaster / Café de Leche

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2

I do have a question, and I shall take your roasting courses if you give the answer that cures the issue we are facing.

We do roast green coffee beans from China and from Indonesia, of course, each single source is roasted separately. We do not roast blended green beans.

The issue we face is that we always get color inconsistency in the roasted coffee within one batch (uneven coffee color for the same roasted batch).

Our roaster is 3 kg (max load for each batch is 2.500 kg of green beans). 

We pre-heat up to 150 Celsius some times 170 Celsius (experimenting).

This is always the case with Medium Dark roast (we drop down the roasted batch immediately after quietness of 1st crack), and not with the dark roast

Your help in this is highly appreciated.

Best regards

Samir H Yousef

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3

Hi, this is Candy from Southeastern Roastery. I’m opening a cafe this fall 2019 in Riverdale Park, MD and already have a few wholesale clients with more interested.

I am running into an issue regularly where potential clients want a tasting, have equipment but don’t have it connected (espresso machines, grinders, etc). My first question is what are the best portable equipment for tastings as I’m getting my shop built out? 

My second question is how to best mimic and espresso with portable equipment? I find it hard with a French Press, water hot pot and portable grinder.

Thanks,

Candy Schibli

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4

1. If I wanted to donate a portion of my coffee business profits to coffee producers in need, how would I do it?
2. Seasonality: I need a guide to determining when I should buy a certain country's coffee. I want to buy at the beginning or middle of the season & not at the end

Dan Gorman, Punto Fino Coffee,  Fairfax 

5

When is the best time to adjust drum speed? Drying phase Maillard, after first crack? I’ve read what Scott Rao has to say about rpm for specific roasters depending on the roaster size and would agree with him for the most part. What I can’t seem to understand is at what point do you adjust drum speed when trying to create the best curve/profile for a specialty coffee?!

Too slow will cause more conduction heat and scorched coffee

Appropriate speed will give you a good well-rounded coffee if the roaster is skilled enough.

Too fast will also give you scorched coffee since beans aren’t flowing in the drum properly

I’m trying to think outside the box and figure out how to manipulate drum speed to create an outstanding cup of coffee. I understand there are many factors involved such as atmospheric pressure, ambient temperature, humidity.. etc but I truly believe there has to be a way to slow down Maillard with drum speed to fully develops sugars and achieve a better end result.. questions is how?

Rudy Altamirano, LuwakCafe, Tijuana Mexico

Coffee Roasting Q&A with Marcus Young & Valerian Hrala

After a healthy intro about natural wine Marcus and I will answer your questions about coffee roasting.

Wine provided for this episode was by Noel Diaz and his Purity Wine.

These were your questions we've answered on this episode:

1. ABOUT CAFFEINE

I’ve come to believe (but never actually tested) that darker roasted coffee has less caffeine, but I’ve also read that Starbucks is teaching its employees that this is a myth.  Can you settle this for me?

Darron Burke

 

www.cafedonpablo.com

https://youtu.be/_YVRDkPRB0

 

2. ABOUT PRE VS POST ROAST BLENDING COFFEE

"Hey guys! Haven't heard of your podcast until now, although we are familiar with Boot Coffee Campus. I look forward to tuning in.

I'm with Camellia Coffee Roasters out of Sacramento. We've been roasting for about 3 years as Camellia and have had our cafe for about a year and a half.

I would be interested in knowing your thoughts on pre-blending coffee before roast?"

 

Robert Watson, camelliacoffeeroasters.com

 

3. ABOUT LPG vs NATURAL GAS IN COFFEE ROASTING

Are there any significant differences in roasting on a LPG fired vs natural gas fired roaster, all else being equal?

Bill McCachren

 

4. ABOUT LPG vs NATURAL GAS IN COFFEE ROASTING

Are there any significant differences in roasting on a LPG fired vs natural gas fired roaster, all else being equal?

Bill McCachren

 

5. ABOUT UPGRADING A FLUID BED ROASTER

We’re about a year into the roasting business and have started having some small success at both a large, local upscale Farmer’s Market and, more recently, several stores within a grocery store chain located here in Birmingham, AL.  Lots of learning and we’re having to scale things up a bit, which can be both exciting and scary at the same time.

I’m currently using an Artisan 2.5 fluid bed roaster from Coffee Crafters.  I have roasted on drum roasters before, but started on the Artisan because it was inexpensive AND I honestly preferred drinking the coffee I roasted on it.  I find the flavors to be brighter and more distinct when roasted on the fluid bed roaster. When I had to recently scale up my volume, I paid a friend who’s using a San Fransiscan 25 to toll-roast a few hundred pounds for me and while I really valued and appreciated his help - I really didn’t like the coffee as much.  Now I need to invest in a larger roaster, and I can’t decide. I can stick with fluid bed roasters but the largest Coffee Crafters is only 10 pounds (Ashe makes one that’s 22 pounds) or go ahead and move over to the dark side with a 12-15kg drum. Should I make the transition now and “relearn” roasting on the drum, or ride it out with the fluid bed roasters as long as possible?  Your thoughts?

Kurtis W. Eaton, MD, MBA - Bean Creek Coffee, LLC

 

6. ABOUT AIRFLOW

Does adjusting airflow throughout a roast have a significant impact on the roast vs a constant airflow? I roast on a Huky.

Dan Gorman, Punto Fino

Women in Coffee in Rwanda with Smayah Uwajeneza

We are Back [in Arnold's accent]. After a long rest, we are back with a very special episode on Rwandan coffee. Smaya will tell us about women in coffee in Rwanda, about how to become East African Aeropress champion and how did she like her first sip of coffee.

This and hopefully future episodes are co-hosted with one and only Marcus Young from Boot Coffee Campus.

This episode would not happen if we would not sip amazing Viognier Pet Nat. Follow our wine adventures on Instagram, @petnat_ca.

 

 

#42 Starting a Coffee Brand - Sales - Where to sell your product

Where to sell your coffee? What shall be your wholesale price? Is Amazon or grocery stores the answer for your sales? We decided to share our experience from our first year trying to find the best sales channels for our brand Unleashed Coffee.

#41 Starting a Coffee Brand - Logo and Packaging

In this episode, we are going to talk about logo and packaging design. When it comes to the logo design we used plenty of services like Fiverr, 99 Designs and we will describe you the good and the bad about them.

We ended up with a local designer. Was it a good idea? We think so.

We will describe also the process we went through when ordering our bags. We had to order them from China via Alibaba, but it was not a very smooth ride.

Finally, we are going to talk about the importance of barcodes. Barcodes are often overlooked but might be crucial for your sales. 

All this and more in this podcast on building your coffee brand. 

#40 Starting a Coffee Brand - 1. The Idea was born, lets name it.

This is a promised episode where we try to inspire through our experience of building a coffee brand.

After I introduce William - the coffee farmer and the CEO of Unleashed Coffee we will give you few tips how to select the perfect business partner for your project.

We also did a small exercise and asked each other our strong points and our weaknesses. This part was unrehearsed and we had a blast to evaluate each other. 

Selecting the name for our company was pretty challenging and long process. Did we over think it?  We will share how and what did we find important when selecting the name and how did we test it among potential customers.

Are focus groups the right way to test your potential name? If so how can you get most of them?

All this and much more in this episode.

Do you have questions? Join our Facebook group and ask us!

#39 Cold Brew and Butter in Your Coffee ... a Coffee Biz Idea Under $10000

Denet Lewis from Barbell Coffee will reveal how can you start a coffee business under $10000 and how did they find their crowd in the crossfit niche.

In this episode we will also talk about different ways to make cold brew and also how to bottle cold brew.

With Denet we will discuss their buttered coffee derivative which is based on the bulletproof coffee. 

Is Running a Cafe in the Overpriced Paris a Good Idea?

In this episode I have a very exciting guest all the way from Paris.

Jana Bukovinova opened a cafe/bistro in Paris called Thank You My Deer.

She is the business owner, barista, baker and chef. As I mentioned previously I truly believe that coffee roasters and baristas who know how to cook, bake, how to develop flavors have a serious advantage over the rest of the crowd. Jana is one of few who can do that and it does not stop there.

She does it extremely well creating buzz all over France. I hope you find her story inspiring the same way as I did.

How did she do it? What are her biggest challenges running her coffee business in Paris? You will find out in this podcast.

#37 What Does a Rwandan Barista Dreams Of?

I think I am not wrong when I say that most coffee professionals dream of going to the origin, tasting the coffee cherry and frolicking on the coffee farm like Kaldi’s goats in 15th century in Ethiopia.

But have you ever wondered what do baristas from the origin dream of?

We know that 10-20y ago in many coffee producing countries, drinking coffee was not something what was done. Many of the coffee farmers did not even taste their own coffee.

This is rapidly changing and origin countries opening amazing cafes, where locals, tourists and coffee farmers can be united by the art of the barista.

A good example is Daniel Sibomana from Kigali’s Question Cafe. Dan recently visited the San Francisco Bay Area so I was curious about his cafe in Kigali and how does he perceive the coffee world in the SF bay area.

Enjoy the show!

#36 Episode #2 with Michal Molčan. Is Intelligentsia Coffee a Sellout? Is Failing Fast a Good Thing?

Second episode with Michal Molčan from the Standart Magazine.

In this episode Michal will describes his ideal cafe, elaborates on the idea behind Peet's acquisition of Intelligentsia's coffee and debunks the Silicon Valley spirit on failing.