What is Coffee Roasting?
Coffee roasting is a heating process that turns 'green coffee' into fragrant, dark brown beans. Roasting brings out the aroma and flavor that is locked inside the green coffee beans. Beans are stored green, a state in which they can be kept without loss of quality or taste. Roasting causes chemical changes to take place as the beans are rapidly brought to very high temperatures. When they reach the peak of perfection, they are quickly cooled to stop the process.
Roasting is both an art and a science - a matter of seconds is the difference between perfection and destruction. We roast all our coffees to enhance the unique qualities already existing in the green coffee beans before a roast, so each coffee is roasted a bit different than another. We roast coffee daily, ensuring some of the freshest beans possible make their way to you! Below you can read more about the roasting and silo systems behind a beans journey!
Loring Roasting System
We’re constantly examining and reexamining every aspect of our business to make sure we’re operating in the most efficient and sustainable ways possible. When it came to assessing our roasters, we knew that at the very least we wanted two things: environmental efficiency and the capacity to produce wicked good coffee. We got more than we bargained for when we committed to five new roasters. The Loring Smart Roast is the dream machine. Using state-of-the art technology and the unique Flavour-Lock Roast Process, we are able to roast great coffee for you, and still be friendly to the environment.
The Flavour-Lock process creates a closed-loop roasting environment where the gas burner simultaneously superheats the spent air to incinerate the smoke and odor before they leave the roaster while also heating the clean air to the perfect temperature for roasting great coffee. By multitasking the roaster’s burner we no longer need to operate an afterburner. One burner instead of two means we can reduce our energy consumption by up to 80% all the while reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a win win.
If that wasn’t enough, the Loring also roasts some pretty awesome tasting coffee! This is partly due to the enclosed system. This system creates a stable and ideal roasting environment that increases humidity while eliminating oxygen...whether or not we are in the dog days of a Maine summer or the dead of winter. Which all adds up to a consistently flavorful and nuanced cup o’ joe. And isn’t that really the most important thing?
Silo System
Our state-of-the-art silo system has been officially constructed! This project and installation have taken months to complete, and we're so proud to see the transformations that have happened here at Wicked Joe the past 20 years.
Back when we first started, physically handling 100lbs+ bags of green coffee and then loading into roasters was standard practice. These efforts have been continually automized throughout the years in an effort to enhance the quality of the work and efficiency of the overall operation. This has come to a further head with our silos, which allow for green coffee to be directly deposited into our roasters with the push of a button.
The silos also come with a pre-cleaner system, which ensures further quality discernment between slightly under and over-sized beans (mind you, the premium green coffee we receive has already been sorted through once or twice already!). After this coffee goes through its second or third clean, it is automatically sent to one of the twelve storage silos, which each have a capacity for 10,000 pounds. The prescribed recipe to one of the designated five roasters is input, and the output is then green coffee delivered right to the source. This greatly reduces the labor intensive act of pulling beans from sacks, as well as allowing for extensive storage and a focus brought back to the art of roasting.
This evolutionary process is one to be celebrated, and will make a significant difference in our operations here - helping us to Get Wicked efficient at what we do!