The Best Coffee Roasting Equipment Features Plus Suppliers

If you’ve been looking for the best coffee roasting equipment, then this guideline is for you. Whether you prepare coffee in a small or in a large coffee place, you need high-quality equipment. Besides espresso machines or even a coffee roaster, you should also buy smaller accessories that will make your job much easier. You must choose from the best supplier to be safe.

Bear in mind, that most machines from the major brands are capable of roasting a delicious batch of coffee. But, some machines have features that make top-quality roasting and replication too difficult, even in skilled hands. Common examples of such features include thin, single-walled drums, slow gas valves, valves with poor resolution at low settings, etc.

As well as excessive insulation around the drum, slow or poorly positioned probes, and limited control of roasts after the first crack. So, what kind of coffee roasting equipment do you require? And, what is the best commercial coffee roasting equipment that you can get? Well, read further to find out, for we’ll discuss what to consider when choosing a roaster.

It’s up to you as our readers to infer our opinions of various brands. And, just in case you’ll have some personal user insights, you can always share them with us in our comments section. Let’s get started, shall we? None of the features listed below are necessary to roast a good batch of coffee. But, each may contribute to improved roast quality or repeatability.

The Coffee Roasting Basics: Developing Flavour By Roasting

Just like baristainstitute, we bet roasting is the thing that every barista wants to know about! Bearing in mind, we too can easily and quickly develop flavor by roasting coffee right from our head office. How can we achieve the best-tasting coffee? What actually happens when roasting? Well, coffee beans are seeds matured in coffee cherry just to be sure…

They are then processed and dried into coffee beans. Before roasting, coffee beans are green in color and have a beany and grassy aroma. Actually, green coffee beans do not smell like coffee at all. When we roast coffee, we develop 800 to 1000 different aroma compounds. These compounds make the coffee flavor to be just the way we like them to be.

With roast profiling, we can affect the existence of these aroma compounds in coffee and also determine the flavor of the coffee. Talking about coffee roasting, this means transforming coffee beans from green to brown. There are different ways to make it, and that affects the flavor. I will here discuss the principals of roasting and commercial roasting.

With that in mind, you can learn more about the different ways to roast coffee at home from Tomi’s blog which has more details. But, have you ever thought what is the difference between filter and espresso coffee if we may ask?

Are We Roasting For Filter Or Espresso Coffee?

To enumerate, filter extraction is done by gravity and its’ process is quite gentle. You may use very aromatic and more acidic coffee for filters. On the other hand, espresso is extracted with a 9 bar pressure. That means more flavor is extracted from the cup. Sometimes coffee roasted for espresso might not be as good when brewed as filter coffee and vice versa.

Some roastmasters want to roast only for the bean and not for the extraction method which means they aim for a golden middle way between too light and too dark so that coffee is suitable for both. Traditionally, espresso is dark roasted coffee with low acidity and a big body — where filter coffee is also roasted differently in different countries.

Typically, the roast degree is lighter than for espresso. Nowadays roast styles are more flexible than traditionally. For example, our Ethiopia Amaro Gayo espresso was third in the Helsinki Coffee Festival espresso competition. The espresso was lightly roasted with a fast profile which made it really aromatic with low roastiness — the body was rather juicy than heavy.

A Beginner Video Tutorial: A Roastmaster Explains The Art Of Roasting Coffee

On the other side, we want some of our coffees to be more full-bodied as espressos. Then we roast a little bit longer and make the development stage longer to develop flavor and decrease acidity. All in all, learning to roast is a never-ending journey. You can always learn more about the bean.

The most interesting part of the work is trying to find out the best possible roast profile for that mouth-watering coffee’s characteristics. Be that as it may, there are three main stages in roasting: the drying stage, browning stage, and development stage, or rather, the roasting stage.

Stage #1: Drying The Beans

The coffee bean has a humidity of 8–12%. We need to dry it before the actual roasting starts. The drying stage typically lasts 4–8 minutes with a traditional drum roaster (see below for roaster designs). The temperature at the end of the drying stage is typically 160 ⁰C. Especially, with drum roasters, you need to be very careful.

In particular, so that you do not burn the beans by having too much heat at the start. The drying stage is also important for collecting energy for the bean because the last stage of roasting is exothermic (heat-producing).

Stage #2: Browning The Beans

From 160 ⁰C the coffee starts to smell like toasted bread and hay. This is when the aroma precursors are starting to convert to aroma compounds. Even though the browning stage is after the drying stage, drying continues during the browning stage. At the browning stage, it starts the Maillard Reaction that is responsible for browning.

In the Maillard reaction, reducing sugars and amino acids react making hundreds of different aromas and color compounds known as melanoids. This is the stage when the roast naturally slows down – and some roastmasters also want to slow it down – to ensure flavor development. At the end of the browning stage, the coffee starts to pop.

Specifically, this is what, as a result, is now called the first crack – the next stage of the development of the beans kicks in almost immediately.

Stage #3: Roasting The Beans

At the beginning of the development stage, the reaction becomes exothermic, and the coffee cracks. During the drying and browning stages, the bean has collected energy that makes the coffee explode. For your information, development time is when the wanted aroma compounds are developing.

On that note, if we do not slow down the roast at the development stage, we easily get coffee that is smoky tasting and the flavor is too sharp. Technically, Cropster Software can be used to track roasting and profile. The length of the development stage is typically 15–25% of the total roast time depending on the desired flavor profile and roast degree.

What Is The Best Roast Degree?

The roast degree is one of the most important indicators of the roast. It can be measured by a color meter or by tasting. Roasters usually want to enhance coffee’s own flavors and decide the roast degree. Typically light roasted coffees are more acidic, and dark roasted coffees are more bitter. Also, fruity flavors are more common on light roasts.

While, at the same time, roasty and burnt flavors are more common on dark roasted coffee. Lightly roasted coffee is more fruity due to high amounts of an organic compound, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural. When roasting goes further, this compound breaks down to less fruity compounds.

The amount of sulfuric compounds increases, which produces roasty and burnt flavors. As a role of thumb, we can assume that light-roasted coffee brings the character of raw coffee out better. It is easier to discriminate light-roasted coffee from each other than dark-roasted coffee.

Which Is The Ultimate Roast Time?

Even though the roast degree has the biggest role in coffee’s flavor profile, the total roast time and time of each stage are also important factors. If you roast fast, you will get more desired aroma compounds. But be careful not to burn the beans! Coffee’s total flavor (fruity, berry-like, chocolatey, nutty altogether) is stronger.

Also, the amount of aroma compounds, which are created at the beginning of the development stage, is higher with fast roasting. In some cases, fast roasting is not a good idea. It can be due to the roaster design (see the video guide in the next section) or the coffee’s characteristics. Fast roasting enhances all the flavors of the coffee.

If we do not want some flavors in the coffee, we need to adjust the roast profile. For example, acidity is normally desired flavor but on espresso blends, people sometimes want low acidity. When roasting slower organic acids have more time to break down, and the coffee becomes less acidic. This is when slow roasting might be a good idea.

What Equipment Is Necessary For Your Coffee Roastery?

Simply put, the short answer would be a good coffee roaster. But, this is not everything that you need to be able to provide the best services for your customers. If you want to make your coffee roastery the best in the city, you need to pay attention to the details. Can your coffee roasting machine deliver the same results each time you roast coffee beans?

Is it possible to change the settings whenever it is needed? Or rather, can you vary the roasting grade? If your answers to these questions are affirmative, it means that you own a good coffee roaster. While buying a coffee roaster, just decide if you prefer a traditional fuel-powered roaster, or maybe, a more modern solution, which is an electrical roasting machine.

Both options have their own unique advantages and notable disadvantages. If you don’t want to sell hundreds of kilograms of coffee per week, you can invest in an electrical one because they are usually smaller, ergo they take up less place. Besides, you will always get the same results. Repetitiveness in coffee roasting is an important factor in terms of your customers.

Related Resource: Coffee Roastery Business – Is It Worth Starting?

As a coffee business owner, on one side, your overall target customers want to buy their favorite coffee type every single time. Although with time, you can, of course, make some changes and offer them something new on a go. And, in general, they’ll either appreciate the repeatability or even keep asking you for more. Definitely, this is the main goal of such a business, right?

Moving on, there’s, even more, to know about such businesses’ outcomes! On the other side, traditional coffee roasting machines are great for those who sell coffee in bulk. Fuel-powered roasters are much cheaper in maintenance, and the other thing is that you can produce more coffee. Luckily, there are a lot of roasting machines on the market that are worth trying.

Technically, when seeking advice about what best coffee roasting equipment to buy, please ask those who have experience with all of the major brands. Roasters who have used only one or two machines tend to favor those machines — but lack perspective about other machines. What if you have decided to open a coffee place, more specifically a coffee roastery?

How To Choose The Best Coffee Roasting Equipment

There are different roaster designs. The design affects the thermodynamics of roasting, and it is possible to make different-tasting coffee with different machines. Small roasters usually use drum roasters, where beans rotate in a drum that is heated below either with direct or indirect flame. This makes the roasters’ energy volume big.

Roasting with these kinds of machines is very stable, but the roastmaster should be able to think up to minutes beforehand. Drum roasters are best when roasting slowly because too high a temperature at the beginning of the roast can burn the bean from the outside. In Paulig Kulma, they use a traditional drum roaster – A Bertha Roaster – a Probatone 5.

In the industry, there have been fluidized bed roasters for ages. Basically, in a fluidized bed roaster, the roaster is indirectly heated by hot air. That makes the roaster faster to control. With fluidized bed roasters, it is possible to roast faster without burning the bean from the outside and to get more aroma to the coffee.

One example of a fluidized bed roaster is the roaster in Vuosaari roastery to be specific. There are also some hybrids between fluidized bed roasters and drum roasters, like Loring Roasters, in which there is a drum but heating is done indirectly by hot air.

Related Resource: Learn How We Make Our coffee – The Black Cab Coffee Co

Presumably, you’ll need to, bear in mind, that there is a lot of equipment to buy. A good coffee roaster and a whole packaging station are requirements — without which you cannot lead your business. Fortunately, it’s easy to find a good coffee equipment supplier online yes! But, unfortunately, it’s difficult to get high-quality customer service from many seller brands.

In such a case, if you don’t know, where you can complete your coffee roasting equipment, we’ve got some notable leads for you. And, our best bet (topmost pick) is non-other than the CMS suppliers! Just for your information, to enumerate, the Coffee Machines Sale, or CMSale (CMS) is a great online coffee equipment supplier that you can lean on for many benefits.

The company makes it so easy to find coffee equipment online for your business. Realistically, the CMS online support team is quite helpful and reliable as you’ll come to realize. And, once you’ve estimated the startup costs of your roasting operation, you’ll be able to prioritize your wants and needs. As you make an informed best coffee roasting equipment choice.

Related Resource: Do I Really Need A Destoner For My Coffee Roaster Business?

So, why go for the CMS supplier? To begin with, you can check out this website link https://cmsale.com/ by the Coffee Machines Sale (CMS) team. Hereby, you will find anything/everything that you need to consider. This means, that if you are a coffee professional enthusiast like ourselves and/or a coffee shop business owner, you should get in touch with them now.

Eventually, you can even register to create an account with them, or rather, log into your account head-on — if you are already a member. And then, start shopping for the best coffee roasting equipment that suits your business. It’s as simple as that!

Inside their inventory, besides being knowledgeable about the best coffee roasting equipment for your business, they are quite helpful while making your selection. What’s more, they are not just known for selling these types of equipment but also for offering other unique after-sale services too. With a variety of custom/tailor-made support like programming, testing, etc.

Overall, their programmable and testing toolkits will automatically scale up your coffee business at a great capacity. Furthermore, you’ll also enjoy the convenience of having your very own workplace equipment to cater to your employee’s surplus coffee demand. Without the need for them to go looking elsewhere (outside cafes) — whilst, saving time.

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In other words, CMS has very great coffee machines for sale with all the unique features that your business needs. What’s more, their outstanding customer service team will see you through each step of the way. What else are you waiting for? Visit their official website to see all that they have in store, and then, share your User Experience (UX) with us later on.

The Topmost Best Coffee Roasting Equipment Features To Note

Forthwith, we’ll implore that you ask other users of a brand about service quality before you put a deposit on any given coffee machine. Even if you have a pleasant initial sales experience with a company, that does not guarantee future service quality. Markedly, a beautifully refurbished vintage machine may make a nicer impression — than a budget, modern machine.

Choosing the best coffee roasting equipment is crucial for your business. Meaning, that you should make up your investment mind at a slow pace. What else should you invest in? Well, there is actually more equipment that is a must in every coffee roastery. For example, you might find it helpful, when a machine can automatically pack freshly roasted coffee beans.

A Consumer Video Guide: Buying A Coffee Roaster | The Key Things To Consider

Best of all, instead of spending your precious time measuring the right amount of coffee beans in each bag, you can assign this task to a quality machine. Find commercial automatic loaders that effectively measure the amount of coffee you want. And, can also pack the beans directly into the bags. A good thing is that you can personalize the packaging station by yourself.

Optionally, there are certain products that you can also combine. For example, you can buy an automatic scale, an automatic coffee loader, a heat sealer, and a receiving table, where ready-to-sell coffee bags land. There are many combinations, but it is your own will, what you are going to choose in regard to the key features. Below are the other key features to consider.

1. Business Budget Plan

In the first place, before you settle for the best coffee roasting equipment, make sure that you consider how much you can afford to spend on such a roaster. And, when calculating your budget, don’t forget to include the cost of necessities too. Such as chimney ductwork, pollution-control equipment, initial green-coffee inventory, QC equipment, etc.

As well as a laptop for logging roast data, and various supplies. Secondly, your budget should also include the costs of installation, permits, architectural drawings for the permit process, as well as other key elements and features. Let’s say you’re a first-time roaster buying a machine with a capacity of between 6 kg–15 kg per batch. See the current cost estimates first.

Note that; The costs will vary from country to country; most of us are familiar with the costs in the US. So, in that case, the reference to the current equipment cost estimates list will come in handy. All prices are in USD, and the author is attempting to offer reasonable low and high estimates for each item. If an item’s low estimate is $0, it means the item is optional.

2. Machine Capacity Options

By the same token, to arrive at the best coffee roasting equipment, you’ll also need to choose the proper machine size. Not to mention, it’s important to estimate how much coffee you expect to roast each week over the next two years. Note the weekly amount of coffee you expect to roast two years from today. We recommend buying a machine large enough.

Perse, in order to roast that quantity of coffee in no more than 25 hours. When performing these calculations, remember that a machine’s real capacity is likely less than its stated capacity. And that, at times, beans lose 14%–20% of their weight during roasting. (For reference, third-wave roasts lose approximately 14%, while a Starbucks roast may lose 20% or more.)

Equally important, a machine’s burner capacity — not its drum size — determines how much coffee it can roast well. Always remember, that a reasonable guide is to make a few assumptions. Such as, oftentimes, a quality roast of one kg of green coffee requires 11,500 KJ/hr (or, one lb of coffee requires 5,000 BTU/hr).

3. Supplier Support Reliability

It’s important to realize, that some machines are more reliable than others. Machines with fewer parts, fewer high-tech features, and heavier builds tend to be more durable and reliable. Older, simpler roasters, such as the fabled UG-series Probats are examples of rugged, low-tech machines built to last. Of course, all design decisions entail tradeoffs.

On one hand, some modern technology may lack reliability but make quality roasting easier and more repeatable. Again, ask other users about reliability before buying — we’re sure most roasters would be happy to share their experiences, especially if they have complaints! Eventually, roasters are not always objective about their own roast quality.

One thing is for sure, they tend to be somewhat objective about the reliability of their machines. On the other hand, many brands may not offer service or support in your country. Furthermore, some companies offer poor support once you have paid for your roaster. That said, we won’t publicly discuss which companies, in our experience, neglect their customers.

4. Equipment Usability Performance

Moving on, the next thing on the best coffee roasting equipment features list to consider is the user interface. For many buyers, this may seem like a trivial consideration. But, if you’re going to spend 20–40 hours per week using a roaster, a well-designed user interface is important. Keep in mind, that the user interface isn’t just about convenience and comfort, hell no!

Otherwise, it can also affect roast quality and repeatability. For example, machines that require you to repeatedly tap an up or down button to change the gas setting can be quite tedious to use. In addition, they may also tend to be somewhat slow in responses too. While, in comparison, a machine with an analog gas dial or a smart touchscreen is more responsive.

Obviously, in the end, it makes it easier to replicate curves and can be a pleasure to operate. Other ease-of-use considerations involve having large, well-positioned digital manometers, timers, and temperature readouts. On the same note, you may also want to consider equipment aesthetics. More so, if you are installing a machine for use in a retail cafe or other public space.

5. Customer Service Credibility

Another example, is what if one were to roast three and a half batches of 7 kg green coffee per hour in a Diedrich IR-12? As such, with an average weight loss of 15%, the machine would produce just under 21 kg of roasted coffee per hour (3.5 * 7 kg * .85 = 20.8 kg). That’s more realistic than assuming the machine will roast 48 kg per hour.

But what is the next step? In order to keep the quality of your products, you really have to close the bags filled with coffee beans as fast as possible. Otherwise, the aromas will fly off, and the flavor won’t be there anymore. If you don’t want to lose your regular customers, buying a heat sealer is better. And again, there are different types of heat sealers to consider.

The most popular are the linear ones. You can usually get them for an affordable price, and there is a great choice of many models, so you can choose the best product for your needs. In most cases, make sure that your supplier is able to timely get back to you per the equipment warrant. Usually, this makes a huge difference in differentiating the best supplier from regulars.

Other Things The Best Coffee Roasting Equipment Buyers Should Know

It should go without saying, but please do not rely on the advice of coffee roasting machine sales associates. For one thing, some of them are always biased, and often misinformed about the virtues of competing brands. We, however, do not publicly recommend or critique particular brands in this post, as those opinions are best shared with clients in private.

Similarly, your roasting machine salesperson will likely claim that you can roast 15 kg per batch in a 15kg machine. You should, always remember, that the job of a salesperson is to sell machines. As a result, it may not help you roast the best-possible coffee — you should, therefore, take any claims lightly. Technically, in one way or another, the salesperson may be correct!

For instance, let’s take a case where the drum can surely fit a 15-kg batch, right? But, on the contrary, a full batch may take 15:00–20:00 to roast — this’s something that is longer than ideal.

A Customer Video Tutorial: What Is Inside Specialty Coffee Roastery?

In nutshell, some of the most common examples of great machine features include thin, single-walled drums, slow gas valves, valves with poor resolution at low settings, etc. As well as excessive insulation around the drum, slow or poorly positioned probes, and limited control of roasts after the first crack. Given the number of considerations, how should you prioritize them?

How to prioritize the best supplier list:

Ensure that the brand’s coffee machines are reliable.
Seek out features that, particularly, assist you in precision roasting.
Find a company that offers prompt, reliable service, with service representatives based in your country.
Make sure that it offers a pocket-friendly machine buying cost.
Let it have some relative burner output and features.

If quality roasting is your goal, it’s usually safe to assume you will roast 3–3.5 batches per hour at 50%–70% of a machine’s stated capacity. And then, you can deduct the 14%–20% weight lost per batch. Particularly, in order to calculate how much-roasted coffee per hour a machine can produce. But, how do you pick the right priorities from the larger accessories list?

How to pick the larger accessories list:

Floor Scale: Please choose a sturdy floor scale with a resolution of no more than 0.005 kg (0.01 lbs). And a maximum capacity greater than the weight of your largest batch plus the bucket in which you will weigh that batch.
Resolution Capacity: You may want a scale with an even larger capacity if you plan on blending together full batches. The scale’s resolution must be precise enough to provide useful weight-loss calculations.
Timer Dashboard: Your software or roaster’s control panel probably tracks roast time. Meaning, that you shouldn’t need a separate timer. If you do need one, make sure it is easy to read from a distance.
Spotlight Options: Generally, we recommend mounting a lamp with a full-spectrum bulb just above the bean trier. While, at the same time, we recommend using the trier sparingly. It should be well-lit for those rare times you use it.

Fire Suppression: We recommend hard-plumbing a water line into the roasting-machine faceplate and chaff collector. The water line should include a spray head with an easy-to-access valve. Probably, it’s the best insurance against any fire.

Suffice it to say, most machines from the major brands are capable of roasting a delicious batch of coffee, yes! But, some have features that make top-quality roasting and replication too difficult — even in careful and skillful coffee roasting hands.

How to select the smaller accessories list:

Consider a large scoop for green coffee and that for roasted coffee
Buckets for green coffee, with separate, larger buckets for roasted coffee
Some empty bags for bagging and boxes for boxing, with bucket labels and markers
Brush for chimney cleaning, plus rags for wiping oil from buckets and cooling bin
Tables or counters for weighing, heat sealer, plus wet and dry vacuum for cleaning chaff collector
Grease for bearings and a flashlight, plus a knife and/or scissors for cutting open green coffee bags
Commercial dishwasher (if you can afford it), cupping supplies, packing tapes, plus a labeling printer
High-temperature, food-grade silicone (for resealing pipes after cleaning)

Basically, when choosing the best coffee roasting equipment, we suggest you determine your budget first. And then, make a prioritized list of your needs and wants. Thereafter, ask other roasters about their experiences with various machines. Trust others’ opinions about machine reliability and service, but always be skeptical of their opinions in roast quality terms.

Not unless they have had extensive experience with numerous models of roasters. Ignore subjective information from salespeople. When possible, arrange with the manufacturer or another roasting company. Spend a few hours working on a machine model before committing to its purchase. With your budget and the costs in mind, consider how much you’ll spend.

In particular, on the best coffee roasting equipment, or rather, your roasting machine choice. If you can afford it, please buy a larger roaster than you think you need. We’ve never known a roaster to regret buying a machine that was a bit too large. But, we’ve known many roasters who regretted buying machines they quickly outgrew, right? Let us know your take on this.

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