Roasting locations

Kbeans

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2013
Messages
58
Reaction score
0
Is it a good idea for coffee to be roasted in a garage that is not climate controlled? I live close to Virginia Beach. Thank you for any information.
 
If your roaster has enough 'oomph' for the cooler temps, then it won't matter too much. Storing green coffee is where the climate-controlled environment becomes more important; no big temp or humidity swings, or just plain high humidity.
 
My non-climate controlled roastery is in a tightly build, very dry, one car garage, which is in Ireland, which is in County Galway, where it rains at least every other day. This time of year it is not unusual at all to have rain/sun/hail/sun/rain/downpour/sun/hail all in one day. In summer we'll hit, on a rare day, 30C. In winter we might get -5C but that would be unusual. Snow is rare (certainly nothing like when I lived in New Hampshire).

We roast on a 10kg propane fueled drum machine. We've had no issues with the vagaries of the climate. Where we set our bags of beans we stand them on a pallet so they are not sitting right on the concrete floor.
 
We do have moderate swings in temperature and humidity around here. I am going to be purchasing a 10 kg propane roaster here pretty soon. I have a pretty large garage (30x 45ft) that I was thinking about framing in a smaller room, insulating and installing a window air unit to help keep the room at a stable temperature and humidity. I can always open the garage door on nice days as well. Thank you for your help.
 
How will you vent your roaster? I am getting ready to convert part of my garage into a space for roasting with a bbq grill roaster. My current plan is to roll the roster to the open garage door and have a standing fan blowing out of the garage.
 
I plan on running the ventilation pipes out the side of the garage or thru the roof, whichever is shorter and easier to install.
That sounds like a good plan. That should be plenty of ventilation for that setup.
 
Roasting in garage all year long

Mobile roaster Complete 004.webp

This is a Torrefattore from 2005. It is electric, three element-1650 watts, and I roasted today in 22 degrees F today. No problems.
 
We do have moderate swings in temperature and humidity around here. I am going to be purchasing a 10 kg propane roaster here pretty soon. I have a pretty large garage (30x 45ft) that I was thinking about framing in a smaller room, insulating and installing a window air unit to help keep the room at a stable temperature and humidity. I can always open the garage door on nice days as well. Thank you for your help.
This is a good idea and is what we did in our shop. Cheaper to control the temp and humidity of a small room than a large one.
 
This is a good idea and is what we did in our shop. Cheaper to control the temp and humidity of a small room than a large one.

Whats the size of the room you roast in and is it big enough for your oporation? How do you keep it climate controlled?
 
My shop is about 750sf. including the storage room which is about 120sf. It's plenty big enough for my operation. I've visited roasters who do much bigger volume than mine in similar sized spaces.

I live in a very mild climate which rarely sees temperatures below freezing but we do get a lot of rain. I just use a space heater to keep the green beans above 10C in the winter. The rest of the year I either open or close the doors of the bean room depending on the temperature and humidity. It's rare that we see days above 24C in the summer so I don't have too much trouble controlling the temps.
 
Yea, it is a good idea if you can have a room enough that humidity and temperature can be easily controlled. Temperature is very important in roasting and the better if you have control.
 
OK that sounds close to the size I was thinking. Probably going to do a space between 500-600 square feet. Our tempature peaks at 95 F with 100% humidity to 25 F. Probably gonna need a little more for climate control than a space heater.
 
Back
Top Bottom