The Roaster Capacity And Batch Size

The Roaster Capacity And Batch Size

When you want to roast a batch of green beans, do you consider the capacity of the roaster and adjust the roasting method? How much effort did you spend on roasting the batch of beans? Understanding the capacity of the roaster and how the roasted beans affect coffee roasting will allow you to understand roasting better and control the changes in it to produce better beans.

In this article, let us see how the capacity of the roaster and the amount of roasted beans affect the roasting result.

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Understand The Machine's Recommended Roasting Amount

Every coffee roaster has a recommended capacity, which is set by the manufacturer. This is the maximum recommended amount you can roast, not the amount of roasted beans for the best results. Manufacturers usually try to increase this number as much as possible.

According to your experience, in specialty coffee, it is usually only possible to roast up to 80% of the set capacity of the roaster in order to better control the roasting result.

Users should not think that the rated capacity of the machine is its optimal batch processing capacity. Although not most of them, I found that there are also many machines that use 50%~70% of the rated capacity to roast, which will produce the best coffee.

We said here that we should not use the maximum capacity of roasted beans set by the manufacturer. The roasted beans perform better, but what does this mean? Let's see what happens when too many coffee beans or too few coffee beans are thrown into the roaster.

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Overload: Too Much Roasted Beans

For the drum of the roasting machine to obtain stable heat and allow the beans to develop well after the first burst, you need to apply enough heat at the beginning of the roast. In an overloaded roaster, there may not be enough energy to properly heat all the beans, which will cause the temperature to rise too slowly and increase the total time required to achieve optimal coffee development. As a result, the coffee may have roasted and flat flavors.

If you drive a V4 engine car and there are six passengers in the car, with the same number of passengers, you will consume more gasoline and time than a V12 engine car. A car with a V12 engine will also be faster. In the same way, if you roast fewer beans or increase the energy of the machine, you can avoid too long roasting time.

An overweight bean roaster will also be less efficient in turning the coffee beans because the drum is not big enough, the beans cannot be turned evenly, and the coffee beans will expand during the roasting process so that the drum space will be more overloaded.

Roasting a large amount of coffee at a time may expose some coffee beans to the direct heat of the drum, while others lack heat absorption, which means that the roasted beans will be uneven and increase the possibility of scorching.

When you change the batch of roasted beans, you will actually increase or decrease the amount of heat convection, which affects the chance of hot air contacting the beans, so you are actually creating more surface area for the coffee beans to transfer heat.

Imagine you are in a very crowded and generous place, and everyone is smoking. You must be full of smoke soon. And this will also happen in the roasting machine. If you roast too many coffee beans under the state of insufficient heat and prolonged roasting time, the coffee beans will have a strong smoky taste, and this result is similar to the clean flavor coffee we are looking for. It's completely contrary.

Even if you buy high-quality raw beans, it is meaningless and violent to roast them badly. Must focus on the quality of each link. If you want to roast more beans at once, you should buy a larger machine.

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Too Little Roasted Beans

As mentioned above, the problem of putting too many beans for baking can be solved by reducing the amount of beans, but if too few beans are put, it will also cause baking problems.

According to empirical judgment, if the roasting amount is less than 1/3 of the rated full load, it means that the amount of roasted beans is too small. If the roasting batch is too small, it is actually more difficult to control the temperature during roasting. Generally speaking, you will need to adjust the preheating temperature and firepower according to the amount of roasted beans to compensate for the changes brought about by the amount of roasted beans.

If you roast small batches of coffee without adjusting the roasting factors, there may be some problems. He listed the following situations that may occur:

  • Less airflow is required: This prevents the beans from being sucked out of the roaster.
  • The drum speed is slow: the standard drum RPM will cause the coffee beans to bounce in the drum and be discharged from the exhaust port.
  • No temperature probe is used to assist roasting: When the amount of beans is too small to insert the probe, the probe may become useless.

When roasting a too small batch of coffee, every variable will change. This is more like a guessing game than a stable roast.

Sometimes it is helpful to adjust the batch size according to the amount of your roasted beans. For example, if you use a 7.5 kg batch to process 30 kg of vacuum-packed green beans, this will actually only allow you to bake four pots, and you can finish it. There will be surplus green beans. In addition, because the change in batch size represents the difference in heat required, the consistent batch size is also a necessary condition for stable baking.

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How To Calculate The Best Batch Size Of Roasted Beans

Here are some ways to calculate your optimal batch size:

Know Your Roaster And Heating Type

The possible heat generated by the roasting machine is a critical factor in determining the best batch of roasted beans. A roasting machine with a more powerful heat source will generate enough heat to make the beans heat up quickly at the beginning of the roasting process. Flavor development is very important. If your roaster has more heat, you can add more coffee at a faster speed, and the lower the heat, the less coffee you can put in.

Knowing your roasting machine and understanding how to generate heat is a step in judging the batch size of roasted beans.

When determining the batch size of roasted beans, the material structure of the roasting machine is another important consideration. You may have two different roasters, and they show the same temperature on the probes, but the coffee beans may react differently because of the heat retained in the roaster wall. Know your own roasting machine. I don't think that using the same temperature. You can get the same results with other models of machines.

Suppose you have four different roasting machines, all weighing 15 kg, but they are all different materials, even if the weight is exactly the same, but the performance will be different.

It is very important to understand your machine. If you know the loading batch of the bean roaster, understand the structure and heat conduction material of the roaster, and understand the power of the power supply, it is the way to calculate the ideal roasting batch.

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The State Of The Green Beans To Be Roasted

The type of green beans you want to roast is also the key to the roasting batch. The density, moisture content, and mesh size of the beans will all affect the heat absorption effect. Therefore, it is very important to understand the green beans you want to roast. Suppose you know the density, moisture content, and mesh size. With the influence of the number, the energy required to roast these beans and develop the flavor can be calculated, and the sample must also be roasted.

In the early stages of roasting, a lot of energy is needed to heat and drive away from the moisture of the green beans.

Monitoring The Roasting Curve

Keep paying attention to the roasting curve you use. If the curve is too flat, the roasted coffee may have a hollow feeling or underdevelopment. More heat power is needed to increase the heating rate in the first few minutes and make the curve steeper. After the first burst of roasting, let the curve flatten.

Many people will observe the time of the first explosion, but they do not really think about why it will reach the first explosion at this point in time. If you roast beans in this way, you risk overloading the amount of roasted beans. The first burst will still occur, but it will take longer to reach this stage, and this will cause the coffee to be bland and roasted.

Start from the ideal roasting time and work backward. If the expected program is not reached at a specific time, please reduce the batch of roasted beans. This is because it is easy to find the right amount of roasted beans in the sample batches tested.

By understanding how the batch size of roasted beans and the loading capacity of the machine affect the roasting process, you can make more informed choices. This means that you can start with sample roasting and avoid wasting expensive green coffee beans.

Start from here to inspect your roasted beans, and after roasting the coffee, waiting for the cup test, when you find a set of roasting methods, try to carefully fine-tune each time you copy the roast. The key to a successful roaster is the stability of roasting, and adjusting the roasting batch is just one simple step.

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