As you know, I live in a coffee mecca. We seem to have a coffee shop on every block. I became interested in the smaller coffee shops and how they roasted their beans. So I did a little research and found out that one of the most famous coffee companies use something called fluid bed roasters.

Fluid-bed roasting is the process by which coffee is roasted using forced convection. Fluid-bed roaster offer several advantages: they are highly efficient, they can be operated fully manually, fully automatically or anywhere in between, they have the ability to very accurately measure bean temperature, and they can be configured to roast in any amount of time. They have the ability to remove the chaff from the roasting process creating a cleaner tasting coffee. These advantages translate to a better roast and a better experience in the cup.

Coffee roasting takes time and patience, and fluctuates from crop to crop and from bean to bean. Your individual goals as a roaster reflect the culture your company is working to build for itself. There are actually very few companies that make these roasting devices. One such company is Heist Roasters which specialize in commercial coffee roasters.