Sample Roaster Standouts

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By Thomas Schmid

Sample roasters, including portable machines, are important professional tools, but they are also making some inroads in small cafés. STiR talks to three suppliers.

Ikawa Pro V3 - Tiny, but oh my!

British company Ikawa’s first sample roaster, rolled out in 2015, was quite a sensation, catapulting the firm to a world leadership position in this product segment. Fully automated yet lightweight and small, the sample roaster was easily portable and could be deployed practically anywhere (provided there was access to electricity). Now available in its latest version as the Ikawa Pro V3, it shines with “more insights than ever, as well as a more durable design,” according to Ikawa marketing and product manager Geoff Woodley.

The V3’s perhaps most noteworthy difference to its predecessors is an added second temperature sensor. “This second sensor, when combined with the existing exhaust sensor, provides more insight into how the coffee is roasting and how to better adjust profiles,” explained Woodley. Another major upgrade was the introduction of a new PT1000 sensor for “incredible precision and accuracy.” “This latest sensor version is significantly more durable while maintaining full compatibility, meaning that users of any Ikawa sample roaster model — even the older versions — can still share their profiles with one another,” Woodley said.

Weighing just 4.12 kilograms and with tiny dimensions, to boot (H24.0cm x W13.0cm x D32.0cm), the Ikawa Pro V3 also convinces through its portability. Easily carried, it can be taken on just about any journey. Woodley says the V3 has users in more than 90 countries and across the coffee supply chain, from farmers to exporters and importers, and from roasters and training centers to small cafés. Despite its ease of operation and small size, roasting results are excellent and – more importantly – extraordinarily consistent.

The roaster’s built-in connectivity – via Bluetooth – to an ingenious smartphone app is another distinct advantage. “We released a significant app update in April 2020, the Ikawa Pro App 3.0,” says Woodley. He pointed out that the update was available free of charge and on both the Android and iOS platform to all existing users (i.e., not just owners of Pro V3). “The update incorporates new tools to organize profiles and also comes with an improved roast log and Ikawa user account.” Regardless of their location, users can exchange roast profiles with one another with the app, but it also connects them to a global library of roast profiles. “This allows anyone to get consistent results that let them concentrate on cupping the coffee rather than the roasting process,” Woodley elaborated.

Ikawa Pro V3’s combination with its bespoke app is a powerful system. “Every Ikawa sample roaster is tightly calibrated so that if a roast profile is received by it via the app [or, alternatively, WhatsApp, email, etc.], it will achieve more or less that exact same roasting profile,” Woodley explained. Sample roasting, he asserted, had traditionally been a skill acquired over many months of hard practice under expert guidance. But Pro V3 makes this all a breeze, even for novices. “Our mission is to improve coffee, from farm to cup. That includes making sample roasting more consistent and reliable, but also more accessible [to anyone].”

Roest S100 - Nordic design perfection

Roest S100 by Norwegian company Roest Coffee AS was developed by mechanical engineer Sverre Simonsen and his brother Trond with the aim of “making the world’s best sample roaster.” A first marketable model was ready in 2018, with full-scale production commencing in the autumn of 2019. Besides boasting automatic settings, the S100 can also be operated manually, having separate controls for barrel speed, fan speed, and power.

A built-in chaff holds up to 2,000 grams, with individual roast sizes ranging from 50 grams up to 120 grams. Integrated wi-fi connects to a dedicated Web portal. “It enables live viewing, but users can also create roasting and cupping profiles online, as well as build a roasting history library,” Veronika Gálová Veselá, Roest Coffee’s marketing manager, told STiR.

And this summer, a groundbreaking feature is making its global debut: automatic first-crack detection. “There currently is not one sample or production roaster in the market that can automatically detect and register first crack, which, after all, is the single most important event during the entire roasting process,” Veselá pointed out. Traditionally, first crack detection is accomplished manually, the operator having to remain at the equipment and literally listen for first crack. Naturally, that is not always consistent. “But now, we finally have that technology; and it’s indeed a world-first, available exclusively with Roest S100,” Veselá said.

Sample roasting is all about exploring different coffees’ diverse properties by subjecting them to the correct roasting temperature and time for bringing out the beans’ full character. “Every sample roaster can handle that, but it wasn’t good enough for the Simonsen siblings,” remarked Veselá. “They wanted S100 to automatically determine when the coffee batch was perfectly developed.” The first-crack detection system is going to be a significant upgrade of S100 and help achieve a perfect roast every time and regardless of how many batches may be processed. Astonishingly, it even registers crack-rate data. “The crack rate varies in each coffee, and we hope that recording it will help users unlock a new way of understanding different coffees and roasting profiles,” Veselá elaborated.

While portability was not a main focus of the Simonsen brothers, they nevertheless wanted the S100 to be “transportable.” And it is, measuring (H)26.6cm x (W)37.5cm x (D)41.0cm and weighing a manageable 14 kilograms. Also important for traveling is that, according to Veselá, “Roest S100 can be used on 100–115V as well as 230V power grids by simply changing its heating element – a job of less than five minutes.”

Probat Sample Roaster - German heavyweight champion

German company Probat needs no introduction, its roasters enjoying a swell reputation among coffee professionals around the world. Yet perhaps unbeknownst to some of them is that the firm also offers a sample roaster, aptly named, well, what else? — Probat Sample Roaster. Its batch capacity of 150 to 200 grams outscores both Ikawa and Roest.  And while it does not actually possess an integrated chaff, it is possible to link two of the machines to an external chaff cyclone, effectively doubling the sample capacity.

Just launched in 2019, the Probat machine was built “for easy and safe operation not only in a lab.” It also can be deployed for demonstrating fresh roasting of coffee or, as the case may be, trying out new recipes. But it also finds use with coffee farmers and green bean merchants. The storing of roasting data and recipes is helpful for quality checks and creating new blends. Data can be shared between two or several Probat Sample Roaster. “And in the near future, data sharing between our sample roaster and our large shop roasters will become possible, too,” disclosed Probat’s chief technology officer, Thomas Koziorowski, who added that the machine allows for manual or automatic roasting.

Since the sample roaster’s operating software is browser-based, a specialized app is not necessary, Koziorowski said. Recipe management with an unlimited number of user-defined blend profiles is achieved thanks to stored data that can be reliably reproduced at any time. The software also gives an overview of all key roasting parameters and temperature curves during the roasting process.

Probat Sample Roaster is offered as a 120V or 230V version, either of them clocking an energy consumption of less than 1.28 kWh per kilogram of green coffee. And basically being a scaled-down version of Probat’s larger shop and industrial barrel roasters, it also provides pretty much every functionality for which the company’s products are rightfully world-renowned.

That “full monty” does come at a trade-off, though: size and weight. Among the three sample roasters showcased here, the Probat machine is the bulkiest (H65.5cm x W25.0cm x D58.6cm). And with its hefty 32 kilograms it is also our article’s heavyweight champion. But Koziorowski explained there is a reason for this. “We don’t market the product as a ‘portable’ sample roaster. Instead, it represents a perfect compromise for facilitating flexibility, usability, stable roasting process, and a broad range of roasting times,” he said. “But if you mean by portability that it can be relatively effortlessly transported from A to B without heavy lifting equipment, then, I suppose, it’s portable after all,” he smirked. Touché! 

Blowing Hot Air

While both Probat and Roest sample roasters utilize a conventional roasting barrel, Ikawa deploys a “fluid bed.” But it has got nothing to do with any liquid. The term refers to an air stream as the mechanism for moving and heating the coffee bean sample. “The principles of roasting are the same on any machine: controlling heat transfer and development and matching it to the green coffee’s physical properties.”

The firm’s fluid bed-equipped sample roasters have been used at many world competitions, even helping Patrik Rolf achieve the highest score in the 2019 World Brewers Cup.

“[Using a fluid bed] certainly is a different approach [from barrel roasters], but our experience and the feedback from our customers have shown that it produces excellent results and actually increases the roasting speed while decreasing the size of the machine itself,” Woodley elaborated.

Which also helps explain the Ikawa roaster’s surprisingly small dimensions.