Coffee Hound is pleased to announce that we are upgrading our roasting operations and will be moving the roaster to a warehouse in Downtown Bloomington. When we started roasting in 2008, we knew it was going to be tricky roasting in our cafe. The first obstacle was where to put the roaster and how to vent the emissions. We had to give up valuable seating space– some may remember the booth seating in the back of the Bloomington cafe. Once the new roaster is up and running, we will be removing the existing roaster and adding seating to this area again. Another major drawback has been the storage of the green coffee beans. When green coffee is delivered it arrives on pallets via freight; each pallet has 10-12 bags of coffee. Each bag weighs approximately 150 pounds and has to be carried down to the basement by hand and then brought back up as needed for roasting. The new facility will allow more accessible storage as well as the ability to store more coffee. Finally, we just reached capacity with the existing roaster and need to replace it with a larger one.
Like every first time purchase, we learned a lot about what was good, and maybe even more valuable, what was wrong. Knowing where to improve the roaster started by increasing capacity. We will be tripling our output compared to our current roaster. The energy transfer efficiency has also been improved with airflow and powerful gas burners, all supported by lots of cast iron for thermal mass and heat retention. The new roaster is a refurbished 19060fs Probat R12 being brought over from Holland. Currently, the roaster is on route via slow boat and is expected to arrive in May. It will take sometime to prepare the new facility, install the roaster, and transition all the operations over.
At Coffee Hound we are driven by relationships, quality, and pushing our boundaries of excellence. It is this commitment that has inspired this latest roasting venture and there will be so much more to share with you about our expansion as it unfolds.