The launch of the flavor planet, let more “coffee lovers” explore more possibilities of coffee flavor with us!
An Interview with the IMF Chinese Roasters: Daily Routine Roasters
Sincere thanks to Chai Yuheng, founder of Daily Routine Roasters for accepting our interview, thank you very much!
Final selection of IMF is June 2021
I met Suci Shi (IMF general agent in China) at an accidental Shanghai Coffee Festival.
We chose a load suitable for the current demand, 15 kg. After purchasing the machine,
I didn’t know that the IMF roasting machine has a built-in afterburner. During the process of obtaining the license, the new factory must strictly comply with the food factory standards and environmental emission standards. When I asked Suci what post-combustion equipment would be better suited for IMF, Suci said, “Oh my god, the IMF roaster you ordered has its own built in afterburner, which is environmentally friendly and energy-saving. You have bought the machine, why you even don’t know it.” Of course, I am very happy, but also a little doubt.
I have some understanding of the hot air roaster before, and I have also used a small hot air sample equipment. I think that the hot air roaster can bring higher roasting efficiency, experience more flavor expressions, reduce the performance of bad roasting flavor. Cleaning and maintenance of this kind of machines will be easier compared with traditional roasters. On this basis, I don’t need to buy an additional afterburner for IMF, this is definitely the roaster I want. So, I pay for this machine and look forward to receive it.
After waiting for a year (delayed by the epidemic), the equipment finally arrived in our hands.
The experience of using the IMF RM15 machine
Q1: Before using the IMF roasting machine, what is your understanding of the hot air roaster?
A: The roasters who were exposed to hot air in the early days felt that the roasting efficiency of hot air was too high, which may lead to the loss of flavor too quickly, and only in the short term of fresh roasting can better flavor be presented.
Q2: When starting a new factory, what are the expected requirements for exhaust emissions?
A: We hope that the emissions of our entire roasting are environmentally friendly enough, smokeless and odorless, and do not want to cause trouble to the surrounding neighbors, so afterburning of emissions treatment is one thing we must do.
Q3: When starting a new factory, what are the preset requirements for the fully automated production of equipment?
A: For factories, stability of our products is our greatest pursuit. It does not mean that full automation is a commercial product. China’s automation industry is very mature, and the same is true for coffee. We can achieve a good taste experience at the same time. It can also take into account safer and more standardized food production processes and consistent production. The ideal state is to realize the visualization and unmanned automatic roasting process.
Q4: After using the IMF machine for a period of time, what are the advantages that you like the most?
A: In 2020-2021, we found that many people can not accept the acidity of coffee. At this stage, I am thinking how to minimize the acidity of coffee, and I have also asked some foreign friends about low acidity, even if we roast the coffee to mid-dark roasting degree, you can also feel the obvious acidity. There seems to be no better way except for the second roasting. Therefore, in the selection of products, the priority is to choose low-acid coffee for blending. At the earliest, the traditional roaster was adjusted to a low speed for 25 minutes and roasted to French roasting degree. After discarding some flavor substances, it was found that a large amount of acid can indeed be reduced, but it also bring in more bad roasted notes and break down some of the acid from dark roasts, just less intense, but not very pleasant. After changing the roaster later, it was adjusted to 16min roasting, and the roasting rhythm was adjusted, and the acidity could also be reduced, but there would still be a heavier roasting taste.
The biggest impression of IMF to me is that under the condition of full load of 15kg, it can take into account the fast roasting rhythm at the same time, while retaining the flavor substance, reducing the performance of acid, and reducing the appearance of roasting flavor.
The first crack is carried out at about 7min, the development is 5:30min, and the whole roasting time of the second crack of dense pink #50 is 12:30min to end the roasting.
After a period of testing and feedback from customers, it was found that this roasting method actually increased the density of coffee beans. The roasted color value is darker than the traditional roasted color value, and the extraction speed is faster. It requires a finer grind and a longer extraction time to achieve the full flavor profile, like a mellow dark cocoa drink. After continuous testing within a month, no loss of flavor was found. We speculate that higher density reduces the size of the pore size of the broken cell wall after roasting coffee beans, retains more extractable substances, reduces the difficulty of extraction, and reduces the fault tolerance rate. Becomes high.
High sweetness and low acidity is the result I am looking for.
Another major advantage of the IMF roasting machine is that the afterburner will keep working at a high temperature of more than 500 ℃, and during the roasting process, I can decide how much energy is sent to the furnace in which section, which acts on the instantaneous reaction of roasting and determines the acidity. Performance. The exhaust air in the furnace will be reused through the burner to meet the needs of environmental protection and energy saving.
The biggest advantage should be the roasting efficiency, automatic preheating, automatic bean feeding, automatic roasting, automatic cooling of beans, which brings us a lot of convenience. With the traditional roaster, I will spend nearly 1 hour to preheat the machine and the roasting interval should be cooled to a constant value, and then heated up for roasting, and the machine should be cooled for 30 minutes. The heat engine of IMF is about 15 minutes, and the roasting can be carried out. The error of the roasting rhythm of the first crack and the second crack will be about 20-30 seconds, and the roasting difference time after the second crack will be within 5 seconds. For the color value, the difference is ±1, and the cooling of the machine is also about 15min. It saves us a lot of work time, which allows us to focus more on recipe development, quality control and production, and interactive customer feedback.
