JBC Coffee Roasters

My name is Adam Walsh. I'm the roast master and director of coffee brewing education for JBC coffee roasters in Madison, Wisconsin. So the beginning of the process would be us receiving a small 300 gram green coffee sample from a green broker. We would then sample roast and cup that coffee for sensory evaluation purposes to decide whether that coffee contained the proper attributes that were looking for and that it was of a high enough quality for us to decide to want to buy it and bring it in here. At that point we then have the coffee shipped to us. Generally it comes in 150 pound burlap bags stacked on pallets, usually 10 bags to a pallet. We then store the green coffee in a separated room from the rest of our shop to help control temperature and h Stable conditions are by far the best way to keep a coffee fresh. Green coffee can go stale over an extended period of time, about a year and a half to two years depending on the coffee. The larger production roaster that we use on almost daily basis for our roasting purposes has a given size limit to the amount of coffee and weight that it can handle per batch. So at that point I then go through the process of deciding what coffees I need to roast depending on the orders that we've taken in for that given day, at which point I write the roast log, giving myself a much better idea of the coffees I need to roast and what order I need to roast them in. At that point I then go into the green room and start weighing out or bucketing the coffees into the given weights required per batch for our roaster. At the end of any given cycle of roasting I would then load the hopper with the next cycle to be dropped into the machine once the machine has reached the specific temp that I'm looking for. So the rotation of the dr The purpose of which is to help avoid prolonged contact of any specific coffee bean with the surface of the dr We want to maintain a consistent and relatively fast bean movement to help even out the introduction of heat to the coffee to avoid any scorching, tipping, or burning. A large portion of roasting is accuracy. That is the reason that we use digital temperature logging equipment as well as I take manual time and temperature readings and record those. It's incredibly important to maintain consistency throughout the roast. So at the end of the roasting process once the coffee has reached the desired time and temperature frame that I'm looking for a specific profile I then immediately remove the coffee or d The purpose of which is to cool the coffee down as quickly as possible to help stop all those chemical reactions that are taking place and freeze or preserve the flavors that we have developed within the roast. As the coffee is being dropped into the cooling tray there is a rotating armature that helps spread the coffee evenly and consistently throughout the cooling tray. At which point there is also cold ambient room temperature air being pulled down through the coffee to help expedite the cooling process. I then remove the coffee from the cooling tray into rubber made totes which I then have to weigh to measure the amount of moisture loss that I've received throughout the roasting process. Then those totes are taken to the production area at which point I will immediately begin blending packaging and sealing bags for delivery. So at the beginning of the production process I take note of what has been ordered. I then begin to fill those bags whether they be five pound bulk bags or 12 ounce retail bags. The bags, the 12 ounce retail bags will vary by color and design on the front relating to its origin. Our clientele can vary pretty widely ranging all the way from large wholesale cafes which would generally take many five pound bags at a time to home enthusiasts which may order only one or two 12 ounce bags at a time. The best part of being a coffee roaster, part of me would have to say that it's the opportunity for creation on a day-to-day basis. The love of the craft, getting to create something with my own hands every day that hundreds and thousands of people get to enjoy in their daily lives.