Coffee Tao

Now that I’ve spent the last two months or so filling out forms for permits, purchasing a roasting machine, finishing the buildout for the roaster, and opening some coffee accounts, it’s time to make the formal announcement: WayOfCoffee.com will soon be changing to become the official site of our new roastery, Fremont Coffee Roasters.
Starting […]

Seems we’ve figured out our flame issue–a dirty thermal coupling was causing the flame to go out at temperatures above 380 degrees. We’ve partially disassembled the burners, cleaned it, and realigned it. Our initial test run was promising, but I’m going to give it a real shot today.
Apologies if it seems like I’ve […]

Used the machine for its first roast today.  How’d it go, you ask?  Terribly, ha ha…turns out our gas pressure is too low, so the flame kept going out.  I tested it with a pound of Brazil Cerrado–almost got something manageable, but the third time the burners lost their flame, I couldn’t relight it for […]

So what’s going on with the roastery?
Glad you asked. After a week’s sprint of laying gas and electrical line, we worked out the kinks, hooked it up, flipped the switch, and we’ve got flame!:

If you’ve never worked in a roastery, let me tell you they take a long time to set up. […]

The most recent post on That Other Coffee Blog about roasting with an audience got me thinking about my own experiences roasting coffee in a public (or semi-public) environment. At my last shop our roasting room was actually set apart from the retail floor; we used to have our 12k Samiac sitting on the […]

Occasionally on this blog I post drink ideas such as the Cafe Cubano and the Dufrain. Though I get ideas from all over, I like to experiment on my own from time to time with making new types of drinks. Sometimes they work out, and I’ll continue to share ideas on this blog […]

Saw this while browsing the web and I couldn’t resist. Don’t know who made it, but if someone lets me know I’ll add the credit.

Our roasting machine arrived crated on a pallet today–I’m very excited. I took the crating apart, moved it off the pallet, cleaned the machine, and put it back together. We still need to hook it up to the afterburner and the gas line, but this was probably the most fun part.
Here’s the crated […]

We went to pick up the afterburner the other day and brought it over Snoqualmie Pass in a friend’s truck. We also palletized the roasting machine itself, and it might get here as soon as this afternoon. I hope so; we’ve got a ton of work ahead of us but I’m looking forward […]

We finally found a proper roasting machine, a San Franciscan SF-25B. It’s in about a hundred pieces but it’s in solid shape and the price was right. We’ll palletize it and bring it over Snoqualmie Pass as soon as the snow lets us.
It’s an older machine, mostly manual the way I like it, […]