Coffee Roasting

The Plane Approach to Coffee Roasting
Navigated by: Christopher

In order to roast a great tasting cup of coffee you must first start with the best coffee beans. It's like the old saying: “You can't make chicken soup from chicken scratch….”You get the idea. At Christopher Bean Coffee Company, we don't waste time over one coffee bean to the next; we simply buy the best coffee available. We have learned that when you buy quality you're rarely ever disappointed.

Roasting coffee is a bit like flying an airplane: you must know what you are doing in order to navigate properly. Trust me— when it comes to coffee roasting, you don't want a rookie at the helm. Our certified Roast Masters roast coffee like a seasoned pilot who knows his plane. Things have to be taken into consideration, such as when to increase airflow and decrease altitude, when to increase the heat and how to make the plane go faster. The most important thing to know is when and how to end or land the roast in order to get a smooth, consistent landing every time. If this is confusing, keep reading and you will see what I mean. 
 

Roasting Detail

Step One. Get the plane ready and review your flight plan. Checking out all of the settings, like airflow and temperature, ensures a smooth roast: much like a pilot checking the weather and going over his flight plan.

Step Two. Make sure you know who is aboard. If we are hauling around a group of sumo wrestlers we may need some extra fuel to get things going. This would be an example of a full roast. However, if you are carrying a group of featherweight boxers you won’t need as much fuel. The latter would be a great example of roasting a small batch of a specialty coffee.
Step Three. Now that we have checked all our settings, made sure we know what we are roasting and have accounted for our weights, we are now ready to move to step four: loading the plane.

Step Four. Once everyone is loaded and the flight attendant gives us the thumbs up, we will be headed down the runway and ready to start our coffee roasting flight.

Step Five. Now that the plane is moving down the runway, it's time to put the petal to the metal, the same as adding heat during the roast. We will use full throttle to get the plane moving fast enough to get off the ground. In comparison, the coffee roasting is absolutely the same. We must add enough heat to the raw coffee beans to get them moving in a forward direction. Just as the plane is seeking an altitude, we as coffee roasters are seeking a temperature. Once the desired temperature is achieved we can ease off the throttle. We don't want to go too fast. Remember, we have a flight plan to follow.

Step Six. Once we have reached our desired temperature, we will back off the throttle just enough to keep our forward momentum going. We don't want our plane to fall! We will keep that forward momentum going until we reach our next checkpoint. As roasters, we call this “first crack.” This is a checkpoint we use to make sure we are following our flight plan. At this checkpoint, we determine if we are going to arrive at our destination too late or too early. For example, if we have been flying too fast or too hot, we would need to recalculate our plan and make speed adjustments to get us back on track.

Step Seven. After our last checkpoint, we now have to consider our landing options. We could land at full speed, but that might be kind of ugly. You see, coffee has an optimum point of roasting time. It’s sort of like flying into different airports: you have different landing strips and different conditions to deal with. If you have ever flown into Hawaii, then you will know what I'm talking about. You know—you have to navigate that wide, right hand turn! But wherever the flight is going, you are going to have an optimum landing time that’s critical. At this point into the roasting process, we must know when we are going to land.

During the descent to the runway, you will experience many different feelings. Sometimes smooth, sometimes bumpy, sometimes scary. If you notice that the pilot is “flaps down and on,” and off the gas, it's kind of ironic: as a coffee roaster, we too are flaps down and on, and off the throttle. There is no other way. Flaps down in flying an airplane helps the descent, but at the same time the pilot needs to add throttle to keep the plane moving forward. Again, as a roaster, we too must land the coffee with flaps down. And we must take full benefit of the air flow while at the same time, using throttle to keep the coffee moving forward until we land. Everything happens so fast at this stage that there is no room for error; it’s all gut instinct. The coffee is going through so many complex chemical changes, that it’s almost too hard to control. However, with proper planning, everything can come together perfectly, just as I have described here.

Have you ever been on a flight where the pilot lands the plane and everyone claps as to say, “Wow, we made it again”? Well in our world of coffee roasting here at Christopher Bean Coffee Company, a very funny thing occurs when we “land the coffee.” I can tell you that from years of experience, the coffee claps. No— I'm not kidding: it really does, as if to say, “Wow, we made it out in time!”

There honestly is a scientific reason for the clapping, and if you really want to know what that is, e-mail us at:sales@christopherbean.com. We will be happy to tell you all about it!

Happy Flying!