Setting up and maintaining a roaster for functionality, safety, and quality output is perhaps the biggest challenge of roasting. There are many variables and trades that go into it and it is easy to skip some steps, be less than detailed, and rush the project. I don’t need to tell you, that is s a recipe for disaster. Perhaps nobody in roasting tech knows this more than the man who gets called to both set up roasters, and swoop in and deal with all sorts of emergency situations and repairs. Today on RoR we are talking with the legend, Doug Graf of Vintage Coffee.
Doug Graf has been rooted in the roasting, and roasting tech, repair and installation world for over three decades. From running his own family business for twenty years- to full time instal, repair, and consulting work for roasters over ten years, Doug Graf has maybe literally seen and worked on it all. Through his consulting company, Vintage Coffee, he provides consulting, training, repair and maintenance, plant design, and start up for coffee roasters of every size. Vintage is also a service representative for Canada for Loring Smart Roasters.
As you might guess, he is also a very active member of the roaster guild where he generously shares his hard earned wisdom and runs the roasters tent at the guild retreats.
In our conversation we talk with Doug about his career and focus on his advice and insights on how we should approach setting up and caring for our roasters and roasting spaces, and what the most common mistakes are related to maintenance to help us avoid needless troubles in the roastery.
We cover:
- Task frequency
- Wait time and working with the trades
- Planning and patience
- Trusting experts
- Major mistakes we make
- Checklists and systems
- Anticipating the investment
- The DIY trap
- Intuition’s role
Links:
Related Episodes:
- 152 : Essential Advice for Starting a Roastery w/ Jen Apodaca
- RoR #9 Inside the Roaster’s Tool Kit w/ Kat Melheim of Black and White Coffee and The Coffee People Zine
- RoR #3: Making Contingency Planning a Reality w/ Andi Trindle Mersch of Philz Coffee
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