Courier Coffee Roasters

Roasted samples of green coffee last night at home in my garage. Our sample roaster is basically a solid steel drum on a spit, turned by hand, over propane flame. A few magnetic thermometers are stuck on the side for reference, next to a small door to spoon samples out. On the far side of the drum a larger hinged door, with a latch key, is for dropping beans in, and pulling finished roasts. Next to the roaster sits a leather glove.

Our sample roaster was made for us by Sherman Dodd, who started Coffee/PER, manufacturer of the SanFranciscan roaster. Five years ago, I contracted Sherman after exhausting a short list of referenced local welders. I spent months on a few different designs, finally deciding upon one, and faxing it over to Sherman, who agreed to make it for me. He made a few upgrades to my design and the result was awesome.

For the first year of roasting in my garage, the majority of my time was spent with this roaster. Now we roast in my garage only to do small samples, sent to us by green coffee sellers. The table next to the roaster is full of tools and forgotten bike parts, while behind is my collection of bikes.

Anyway, last night five samples of coffee from El Salvador were roasted, that were cupped out today. Since much of the flavors were hidden today by the freshness of the roast we will also be cupping these out tomorrow, and maybe after that.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 3:11 pm and is filed under cuppings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.