Three weeks have passed since our Loring Kestrel S35 landed in our corner of North Yorkshire. We are now away roasting bigger batches of more delicious coffee than we’ve ever roasted before, with big grins on our faces.
It turns out buying a new roaster is extremely easy, once you find the money. Everything that happens after is the tricky bit. See below a run down of our first two weeks of the Loring life.
Friday 13th September - The Loring arrives (three days early)
After we paid for the roaster it was built, packed, and flown across the pond to our haulier's depot in Heathrow. Being keen to impress they decided to deliver to us three days early, on Friday 13th September. The communication on their speedy service was less impressive. Friday the 13th says it all really. By luck we found out a few hours before the lorry arrived, as we were checking all was ok for delivery on Monday 16th. Needless to say, we kept cool heads. We tipped said cool heads back and guffawed heartily at the last-minute challenge.
Our neighbouring farmer Michael tootled down with his massive forklift and expertly lifted the three crates off the lorry. As we leaned casually against the walls, shades on, flipping coins with a touch of cool nonchalance – all while fully suited up in hi-vis and PPE – the future of our business hovered 12 feet in the air, delicately balanced on the end of extra long forks. Michael safely de-crated the Loring Kestrel S35 and carefully transported it down the alley to our newly prepared roasting room. After admiring it for a while (mainly saying how shiny it was), we called it a day. That night, we all slept soundly.
Monday 16th to Friday 20th September - Malcolm constructs and commissions our Loring
Our top-of-the-range Loring roaster arrived in kit form, with its parts split into different crates, ready for us to assemble using just one Allen key. That’s what we hoped anyway, turns out Loring includes a 100-piece tool kit and you need an expert engineer to build it. Malcolm Qualeri was the man for this job. He comes with a fine selection of t-shirts and an even finer sense of humour.
Over 16th and 17th, we constructed the Loring, positioned it, levelled it and then hooked it up to the amenities. Before arrival, we had water and power installed as well as a gas line, the girth of an anaconda. All were up to spec, and Malcolm acknowledged this with a few eyes-closed slow nods. We just needed to run a few tests, switch it on, and marvel at it in action. Simple as that.
Turns out it wasn’t as simple as that. The machine popped the breaker straight away. Cue head scratching, beard-stroking, inhaling between teeth, “it’s gonna cost your guvnor”, etc etc. We then learned a lot about electricity over the next 24 hours, while even more shared electrical knowledge flew right over our heads.
The upshot is if you have a roastery on a farm in the countryside, that is fed by overhead cables, it makes installing a high-spec coffee roaster a bit tricky. You can’t just pop to B&Q (other DIY retailers are available) and buy a new breaker. We called in SEM Electrical, who quickly identified the issue - earth leakage - and adapted our setup so we could run the Loring.
After all that electrical jiggery-pokery, Malcolm trained Jamiel on the basics of roasting on a Loring. Jamiel did a great impression of looking like a mix between a kid in a sweet shop and a startled deer for the next two days while absorbing Loring know-how. Malcolm did a truly fine job and went above and beyond at every opportunity. A huge thank you to Malcolm. By the end of day 7, we were roasting bigger batches of more delicious coffee than we’d ever roasted before.
Monday 23rd to Friday 27th September - Michael training and flying solo
No two roasters are the same.
Switching from a drum roaster to a convection roaster isn’t a simple process. There is a fair bit of transferable knowledge, thankfully. The challenge we have faced is taking our Mill City coffees and replicating them on the Loring.
Our Mill City is a drum roaster, which roasts with a lot of conductive heat. Whereas the Loring Kestrel S35 is a convection roaster, with only a smidge of conduction. Both methods result in roasted coffee, but we (and many others) believe coffee roasted on a Loring delivers a cleaner, more delicious cup.
On top of that, the Loring is far more energy-efficient. Our morning warm-up routine has been reduced from an hour and 15 minutes to less than 30 minutes. Our cool-down period has been halved too. And the in-between batch time has been quartered. We’ve managed to reduce all the moments of non-roasting time considerably. What this means is we can roast beans for more time in larger batches during our roast days, while using less gas and electricity.
To get to this point, and make all these improvements, we have needed help and guidance. Michael de Renouard journeyed across from Copenhagen to help us transition to being a Loring coffee roastery. Michael is a lovely man, a liquorice enthusiast and a coffee mega-brain. In essence, what Michael doesn’t know about coffee isn’t worth knowing, and what he does know is truly impressive.
The challenge we faced was taking our quarter bag (15kg) drum roaster profiles and evolving them into half bag (30kg) Loring Kestrel S35 profiles. To achieve this, we had to balance maintaining our unique Rounton Coffee character while improving our coffees (is that even possible, you might ask?).
Guided by these principles, the roastery has become a whirlwind of temperature readings, roast phase lengths, rate of rise percentages, big body, little head, cardboard box...
There have been equations on the whiteboard that only a troubled janitor mastermind, with an Elliott Smith soundtrack, could work out. There has been a lot of liquorice eaten and a lot of coffee drunk. And we’ve been doing all this while balancing the needs of all our customers.
In short, it’s been buzzing at Rounton Coffee and we are buzzing for what the future holds now that we are a Loring roastery. We want to thank everyone who helped us on this journey, from those who shared their Lorings with us and answered our many questions before we bought the Loring to those who got the machine up and running. You have all been awesome and we can’t wait to see what happens next!