I'm in California to teach a roasting course and host a cupping. But in the meantime here's a little video from my trip last week to Portland with Sarah Dooley. We were putting on a cupping of Ethiopian coffees for the local specialty coffee roasters. Jeremy Adams of Cellar Door Coffee Roasters was kind enough to let us use his space. After the cupping he showed us his new baby, a Diedrich IR-12 roaster. To cut down on smoke without installing an expensive and carbon-hungry afterburner, Jeremy installed this cool scrubbing system instead.
Check it out... the videos a little shaky, but if you stick around till I get my camera in the right spot, you can see the super-fine particulate mist he's talking about.
Nice stuff. Jeremy told me on our trip to Ethiopia about it but to see it in action is quite amazing.
@Jeremy: Ship one for me over to Germany - will you be so kind :-)
Posted by: Dominik | May 18, 2010 at 09:34 AM
I feel so connected to your yirgacheffe trip I almost feel I was there! Jeremy is a great guy.
Posted by: Daniel Humphries | May 18, 2010 at 09:49 AM
I like how he just throws out "electrostatic precipitator." As if we all have a few laying around.
Posted by: Eric Hancock | May 18, 2010 at 05:27 PM
Wow, that system looks pretty intricate, I like the filtering system how it catches the rest of the particulates. Very interesting stuff.
@Eric haha, that made me smile.
Posted by: Jason Coffee | June 13, 2010 at 02:02 PM
True coffee science!
Posted by: Josh | June 15, 2010 at 01:57 PM
A refreshingly different way of looking at what could be very boring subject matter. Bookmarked :)
Posted by: CB Power | June 23, 2010 at 09:15 AM
Hi a friend of mine travel to Colombia, into one of the more amazing coffee farms check this out www.cafemesa.com
Posted by: Daniel | July 04, 2010 at 11:09 AM
Well thats a cool stuff! what's the capability of this machine?
Posted by: Coffee Grinders | July 21, 2010 at 12:44 AM
It's an IR-12, which is Diedrich secret code for Infrared burner, 12-kilo machine. The max drop-weight for a machine rated like that is theoretically about 30 pounds of green coffee, but most roaster-operators go with about 80% capacity, for better control of the roast. Roasts take about 12-14 minutes, plus a few minutes for cooling time, because this machine has a one-way impeller that can drive air through the drum or through the cooling tray, but not both at the same time. So that means that Jeremy can roast about 100 pounds of green coffee an hour at maximal operation... or about 83 pounds of roasted product. That's my guess, without directly asking him.
Posted by: Daniel Humphries | July 21, 2010 at 01:40 AM