Things you need when setting up a roastery

Quaffee's new Diedrich IR-12 coffee roaster

We have been setting up a roastery at Quaffee's new location at Buitenverwachting. And thought it may be useful for others to note all the goodies we have required to do so. Besides obvious things like the roaster this is a list (as complete as memory serves to set up the roastery), and in no particular order:

• fire extinguisher
• ADSL line (for roaster, it is has an ADSL router)
• Natural fibre brush (for wiping down the coffee in the cooling bin)
• Micro fibre cloths (we got 5 but 3 should be enough). These cloths require little or no water to clean
• 1800 watt vacuum cleaner, get one that can suck and blow, give you flexibility
• Green bean buckets we got 2 for normal coffee, and 2 for organic coffee. For green bean you need about a bucket that can take twice as many litres and you can roast. So for us we got a 25 litre bucket, since it is a 12 kg roaster.
• Roasted bean containers. An make sure the are seal-able, especially if you are of the elk that believe in some ageing is required of the roast. Here you container must be at least 3 times the capacity of the roaster so in this case we got containers that could take 45 litre at least.
• Two scales (yes 2). One that can handle the green bean, and one for the packaging. If you have a small roaster that does 3kg or less, then you can get away with one scale. The bulk scale we got has wheels and can be moved. this is very useful. The reason for two, is the degree of accuracy. The packaging scale must work to the closest 1g, while the bulk scale 20g accuracy is good enough. Be careful to check this most of the scale sellers are not that clear with this.
• Black permanent marker and labels, to label the batch and coffee
• Roasting Sheets, that at least capture Date, Kgs Green, and Kgs Yield. There are a number of other items we recommend, but that is not for now
• Clipboard and pen, to capture date for the roast on the roast sheet above
• Packaging station  / work desk. Should be at least 90cm high
• Mulitplugs, are they not everywhere?
• Stools for sitting on during the roast
• Coffee scoops, the bigger the better, we got Espresso Supply's Rattleware Bean Scale Scoop, one white for organic one black for other. I think I would recommend 2 though.
• Zip lock bags, for sampling coffee, this is important to get the profiles right
• Mixing container. When making blends this is very useful, you can can get food grade mixers, but a container that has a tight seal is also fine.
• Crates of different sizes. We actually used a small crate to put the roasted coffee container on so that when the coffee is finished cooling we can dispense into the container without spillage. You can also use a small step.
• Packaging goodies, bags, lables etc (obviously)
• Container / file for filing the roasting sheets
• Dispatch sheet for listing what has been dispatched, especially if blending coffee.

That should get you going. Of course depending on your requirements you may need more.stuff. If we find we do I will list them here.