What do you need to start roasting your beans? What is necessary, and what is useful? What the heck is a color meter? In this short article, I will quickly tell you what every piece of equipment you can find on our website.
Roaster. It truly is the heart of the roastery. It’s a machine that will heat green coffee beans and transform them into your perfect brown bean of goodness. They come in different sizes and types of heating that will serve different purposes in the roastery. Smallest usually for samples, medium-sized for trial roasts, small production, and roasting more expensive beans. Big roasters are for commercial roasting.
Color meter. Color meters are amazing pieces of technology that revolutionized the world of roasting. What they do sounds simple, but it can save you a lot of time and money. The color meter reads the color of the roasted coffee sample and transforms it into a specific number. They usually measure the color of both whole and ground beans. It’s good to remember that ground color will be more accurate and comparable.
Roast color palette. It’s a simple version of the color meter. You can compare the color of roasted beans with the reference color from the palette. Simple as that. It’s less accurate than a color meter and requires some experience, but if you have a good eye and light, it can perform quite well.
Grinder. A grinder with low retention will save you a ton of money on quality color measurements over time. Imagine you have to grind 15 grams of beans instead of 50 or more, then multiply it by 20 roasts per day, then by 20 roast days a month and 12 times for each month. Numbers get high very quickly. You can also use it for cupping, brewing and grinding beans for your customers.
Moisture and density meters. They are sometimes one device that allows the roaster to determine the moisture and density (surprising, huh?) level of green or roasted beans. This can give you information on how well your beans hold against time, how to apply heat during the roast, or which profile to choose. Also serves as a quality check if you hold your roasted beans for a longer time (to check if they are not getting more moisture from the environment).
Heat sealer. Basic packaging device. It will seal your bags, protecting beans inside from the environment, oxygen, and light that can damage the coffee.
Refractometer. Mostly used for QC and to check the quality of the brewed coffee. It measures the reflection of light against the coffee sample to determine how much coffee bean was dissolved into your mug.
Sieves. Colino Kit is a great solution for determining the size of your beans. Getting this information will help you determine the roast profile suitable to particular beans.
Weigh and fill the machine. This is the biggest time-saver for small and medium-sized roasteries. They will weigh the desired amount of roasted coffee in seconds and direct it to your bag by pressing the button.
That’s all essential equipment for small roasteries or home roasting enthusiasts. If you’re not sure what to choose, feel free to ask questions via our SM or email. We will be more than happy to answer any question. I hope you will roast something nice today!
Our step-by-step roasting guide has been design for you by Aleksander Smet, 2022 Polish Roasting and Cup Tasters Champion.
Aillio Bullet R1 V2 - Intro
