Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
Mill City Roasters vs Probat at CoffeeFest New York.
The new Probat sales guys attended our classes at Coffeefest New York last weekend. The free classes at least. Probat is a legacy brand and the world’s most famous coffee roaster manufacture. For that reason, I thought I’d share a tiny bit of what I know about the company and their roasters. Probat is a… Read More
Coffee Roastery Equipment, Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
Drum Roasters vs Fluid Bed
Most people don’t know that I started out my coffee roaster career building fluid bed roasters of various sizes including one that recirculated heat. Despite my best efforts all were failures and I never achieved the professional roast quality I was interested in. In hindsight, I’d estimate that exactly half of my failure was directly… Read More
Coffee Roastery Equipment, Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
New Roaster Color (Experiment?)
As a design aesthetic, our roasters have always been a bit more Bauhaus where form very closely follows function. They are classically abstract, angular, and geometric, with little ornamentation. I choose this new color scheme mostly because, after thousands of utilitarian black bodied roasters, I simply wanted to experiment with a new set of contrasting… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
The official Roasting Education Sponsor: Coffee Fest 2023
Grow your knowledge, resources and network at Coffee Fest 2023! Since 1992, Coffee Fest remains the industry’s top performing trade show for the specialty coffee community. Gain new insights, discover products and immerse yourself in a thriving community of local and national industry professionals. Our team at Mill City Roasters is proud to be the official… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
NSF Commercial Coffee Roasters
Another MCR first: NSF Commercial Coffee Roasters! In case you haven’t noticed, things are seldom quiet here. A couple of years ago, the State of California decided that coffee roasters installed in locations that serve retail coffee and other consumables must be NSF sanitation certified. Sadly, that wasn’t nearly as easy as you might think.… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
New on Youtube: MC-60 Roaster Rundown
We rarely have a roaster sit long enough at the warehouse, so we took the opportunity to shoot a video featuring the MC-60. Watch Lauren and Steve as they give an in depth look at the Mill City 60kg production roaster. Watch the full video here! Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
Roaster’s Winter Workshop: Education for Experienced Roasters
New to our educational offerings, the Roasters’ Winter Workshop offers advanced, higher-level training to experienced roasters and returning students. Roaster training and education have always been at the core of what we do at Mill City Roasters. We want to see our customers operating successful roasteries all across the country. That starts with the right… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
Roast Magazine’s Macro Roaster of the Year is Cafe Kreyol
Congratulations are in order for our friends at Cafe Kreyol in Manassas, Virginia. The company was just recognized as Roast Magazine’s Macro Roaster of the Year! This award is a huge honor and a well-deserved title for Cafe Kreyol. Their work as a roaster and green coffee partner is improving the lives of coffee farmers… Read More
Roaster News
PAPUA NEW GUINEA FTO OKAPA, ROOTS CO-OP
This Fair Trade Organic (FTO) Okapa offering is a coffee that stands up to all roast levels. It’s sweet and full-bodied. This green from Papua New Guinea comes to us through farmers associated with Roots #1 Co-op, a cooperative of about 1,590 smallholder producers. We enjoy carrying this green because it adds variety to our… Read More
Brew with Us, Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Dialing In Coffee by Taste
Whether you’re checking quality control of a roast, brewing a pour-over for customers, or ensuring espresso shots pull correctly, identifying if a coffee is properly dialed-in is important. Dialing in allows us to unlock our coffee’s potential and present it at its highest quality by brewing an excellent cup that highlights all attributes of the… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
Mill City at the Minnesota State Fair
One of the neat things about the posh lavish digs of Mill City Roasters is our location 2 miles down the street from the annual “Great Minnesota Get Together” at the Minnesota State Fair fairgrounds. For those of you who don’t know know, the fair is a very big deal. It’s in the running for… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News
A Highly Drinkable Mexico Veracruz from Producer Alejandro Martinez
New to our green offerings this month is a washed Mexico Veracruz coffee. This coffee is a single variety lot from Alejandro Martinez’s farm in Coatepec, a centrally located region in the state of Veracruz. While Alejandro Martinez grows multiple varieties across his 250-hectare farm, this selection is an isolated harvest of the varietal Anacafe… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Brewing for Balance, Acidity, or Sweetness: Three Recipes on the AeroPress
In our roastery, I’m constantly exploring new brew methods and recipes. This past week, I found three recipes for AeroPress that I thoroughly enjoyed. After brewing each one, I tasted the coffee and experimented with some small changes. I found that I was able to highlight unique attributes in one coffee by changing my brew… Read More
Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Colombia Cauca AMACA: Empowering Women Coffee Producers
In our continuous effort to bridge the gap between the roaster and the specialty coffee industry, we are taking a closer look at our green coffee selection with a focus on farms, producers, varietals, and processing methods. AMACA – El Tambo, Cauca, Castillo: We keep revisiting coffee from the Cauca department of southwestern Colombia because… Read More
Brew with Us, Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Choosing the Right Grind Size for your Brew Method
Moving forward from the principles we laid out in last week’s blog post about grind size, we know why our grind size is important. Now, we need to brew all of this delicious coffee we’re beginning to understand better. One of the most important parts of sharing a coffee is choosing how you brew it. … Read More
Coffee Roastery Equipment, Commercial Coffee Roaster News, Roaster News, Roasting & Education, Start, Scale, Sustain
How Does Toll Roasting Work?
Mill City Roasters’ Production Facility In addition to selling roasters and hosting classes at our headquarters in Minneapolis, we also operate a full-scale production roastery. In that roastery, you’ll find four production-sized roasters, packaging equipment, industrial grinders, and green coffee storage. We are able to roast, pack, and ship over 5,000 lbs of coffee each… Read More
Customer Stories, Roaster News
The Alpine Flavor Profile: Chase & Kendra Lovins and Alyssa & Ryan Stauffer and Seedhouse Coffee
Alongside the Yampa River and nested in the high Rocky Mountains, Steamboat Springs, Colorado is a hard town to happen upon. “It’s not a by-place,” roaster Chase Lovins says. Visitors don’t really chance upon the Yampa Valley; they have to seek it out. And so everyone who comes to Steamboat, even the seasonal tourist, starts… Read More
Coffee Roastery Equipment, Roaster News
Why does the weigh/fill machine need compressed air?
I received a very good question from a prospective weigh/fill customer today about why our weigh/fill machine needs an air connection and others do not. This was my response: Strictly speaking, an air connection is not mandatory. If you have one though, you’ll fill bags about 30% faster. Roasting coffee isn’t necessarily all about speed,… Read More
Coffee Roastery Equipment, Roaster News, Start, Scale, Sustain
The “Perfect” Roaster?
A funny thing happened the other day on Facebook Coffee Roasters Forum. Another numbskull posted that his company was engaged in the exercise of building the “perfect” roaster and asked people to chime in about what they thought their “dream roaster” would look like. I have several problems with this entire exercise. First, if your commercial… Read More
Brew with Us, Coffee Roastery Equipment, Roaster News, Roasting & Education
Flash Brew Iced Coffee
What is flash brew? Flash iced brew coffee is simple. Take the full amount of water you would use in a hot brew and split it in half, replace half of that water by weight with ice. Then, extract over the ice. This melts the ice and rapidly dilutes the coffee, without that dilution the… Read More