Coming from a small roaster ( I am the production roasting department) it’s awesome to see what a bigger operation looks like. Keep up the great content.
Thanks for the day in a life. All the way from Malaysia here. Just wondering what do you guys do with the beans that were 'rejected' by the color sorter?
I am not a roaster, but I am friends with one, and I often go over to help with dishes and sometimes packaging. maybe if I watch enough of these videos I'll be able to help with roasting too :)
Thanks for sharing. I’ve been home roasting on a Bullet for almost 3 years. My friends and coworkers are requesting coffee more and more, so I’m starting to get curious about someday starting a small coffee business. Unfortunately, my job has me moving every few years, so I haven’t been able to start an apprenticeship with an established roaster. Besides frequent and deliberate cupping, do you have any tips for helping me refine my skills as a roaster without a community of professionals to help me grow?
For sure - frequent cuppings is a good start, but I’d also say cup with other people to develop your palate in relation to others, especially other professionals. Also play around with different roast degrees, varieties, and flavor profiles to better understand how your inputs affect the flavor in the cup!
Neat to see y’all use hybrid fluid bed roasting. Never tried B&W, but will need to grab a bag and compare to my home roasted stuff, see if mine is crap or not haha. Just an hour south of y’all. Cheers
That rarely ever happens - our process and machinery is dialed in so we don’t have many batches that go “off spec.” But if something does we usually find a use for it somewhere.
There are many factors to consider when deciding on a machine to buy, so there’s no one “best” answer. The best is the one you can learn and control, and that gives you the workflow and consistency you want. That’s different for everyone.
Cool! Love seeing the behind the scenes on where my coffee comes from. Currently I am drinking Brayan Alvear. For sure one of my favorites that I have tried from you guys. Hoping The Future will get back to year round rotation.
Thanks for sharing this. It was great to see your day. I recently in the last year moved into learning to be a production roaster from a different career. It’s hard but rewarding. I had my biggest roast day to date yesterday. 20 roasts. Which feels like a bit of a milestone.
Peet's Coffee only has one roasting plant (located in Alameda, CA) that supplies coffee for the cafes, retail stores, and online. That means we are roasting large batches of coffee 24 hours 6 days out of the week. One batch averages around 700-740 pounds of green coffee. On an eight hour shift I usually complete 25-27 batches of coffee. While we are roasting we have to keep track of net weight coffee, collect samples of coffee for cupping,load hoppers/sacks for production, and complete at least one table of cupping, while keeping an eye on the roast. The job is mentally exhausting from the repetitive task, but I cannot really complain. Two years ago I was working at Target feeling unfulfilled in life, then I quit and started working at the cafe. After a few months there I wanted to challenge myself to become a roaster (having no experience or a degree) in order to grow with the company.
