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good morning I'm in California today I'm
in Berkeley and I'm here to see
bellwether a new kind of roasting
machine startup and I'm here to see the
mayor kind of adviser to them to kind of
offer some thoughts and ideas and see
what they're doing and where the
technology is and and what the future
might look like now if you're not
familiar with bellwether bellwether make
a kind of new kind of coffee roaster
it's a machine designed to be smoke-free
right it doesn't need connecting to
ventilation on that it doesn't produce
any smoke its primary goal actually in
its early build was that you could just
put it in any cafe and not have to worry
about venting it out which is kind of an
amazing thing but it does some pretty
clever stuff to get rid of emissions
there's a tiny little bit of smell from
this thing but really there's no smoke
there's no hassles right so that's
that's the first kind of interesting
thing about this red stuff this is in
its really early stages right so a bunch
of stuff that I'm today I couldn't
really film but Korea understand that
this lots they don't really want to have
out there in the world quite yet but I
was able to capture a few different
things about the machine so size-wise it
is you know compared to me it's about
the size of a decent perhaps American
fridge right like not like a small
refrigerator but like a good sized one
so power wise it doesn't in a decent
amount of power because it's gonna roast
up to about three kilos of coffee per
batch I think seven pounds is how they
would think about it describe it and
they would say there's a true seven
pound roaster all right a lot of times
Coffee Roasters will say that there are
fifteen kilo roast if it really
probably gonna load ten to twelve kilos
into it there's often a bit of a gap so
for them they say it's a it's a true
seven pound roster which for an electric
roaster is actually a decent amount of
coffee you might wonder why I'm here
right you know this kind of a business
that will sell Roasters and then also
sell potentially some green coffee to
its customers you're not locked in you
don't have to buy green coffee from the
weather but they have you know coffee
available and they've got a great
sourcing team there are to me a kind of
disruptive competitive potentially but
I'll tell you why I'm interested in this
and I think about the future maybe quite
a long way in the future but right now
coffee roasting is extremely reliant on
burning gas and I would hope at some
point we managed to transition away from
burning gas as as a source of heat right
I would hope that in the future we don't
have to keep doing that because we know
that's a bad thing so we're probably
using electricity as a huge source and
if that's the case what we know right
now that doesn't scale super well right
so you're not going to have this classic
model of all the coffee being roasted in
one place and distribute it out so it's
likely that in the future there's a
potential outcome where coffee wasting
happens like this in a very distributed
way because it's all run through
electricity and that's coming from
sustainable sources and that's me being
hopeful so from from a future
perspective I think this is just
something to pay attention to and more
these kind of Roasters and projects
which is why it was interesting to me so
you can we can ask the obvious question
which is is it good does it roast
amazing coffee and at this stage I can't
really tell you one I've only kept a
handful of coffees roasted on it and -
this is a really early-stage thing it's
full of potential and certainly we've
seen Roasters arrive that work in a
different way and I think of the
lowering right when that first appeared
on the scene it had a lot of detractors
people thought it couldn't roast coffee
that was as good as the classic drum
Roasters but I think that thinking has
changed as we've begun to understand
that new tool
and I think this tonnes are potential in
how this thing works and in somebody's a
little bit similar right like it has in
it a scrubber unit that uses heat to
burn off the smoke and particulate and
other stuff that you don't want and that
air is that clean hot areas we circulate
it back to the roaster which is one way
it gets rid of smell and emissions and a
little bit of cold air is introduced and
a little bit of the existing areas taken
out run through a HEPA filter and a HEPA
filter is also used to filter out the
cooling air when you drop a roast into
the cooling tray you know it's kind of
an air roaster with a fixed drum that
that has a sub spinning churning
mechanism inside it so the drum doesn't
rotate the drum is fixed and then it
churns inside there's tons of data from
this rush to this there's lots of probes
all over this thing and they're really
starting to dig into the data coming out
of it and what it means or what it could
mean and I think this is a really
interesting potential in a roaster like
this to to approach roasting in a
slightly different way right I get quite
excited about those kind of potentials
it's a really interesting technology
that I think opens up so many new
possibilities that maybe will take us to
a place where coffee roasting gets a
little less frustrating right I I've
long been frustrated by the way that
coffee roasters work by the way we use
temperature probes in the bean mass a
lot of that just just doesn't work that
well so I think there is a better way so
coming out here to Berkeley was kind of
cool like I could see the early models
that they built there's I think four or
five units built right now that they're
experimenting on and iterating with you
know they're starting to work with some
early customers and it's definitely an
exciting time and they're a very
open-minded very responsive company to
work with like I'm super interested by
the potential by what this could mean
for the future I'm thinking a long way
down the line is this how coffee
roasting will happen in the future once
we've moved away from fossil fuels
that's a really good question
so lots more to explore I
I look forward to coming back here again
and digging in deeper as they as they
progressed on their journey to to having
something officially out there in the
world and then available but today has
been like a really exciting really
productive really interesting day and
I've enjoyed a lot so if you have any
questions I will answer what I can down
in the comments below please ask me some
stuff I just can't answer it's not my
place to share that information but if I
can and will and as always thank you so
much for watching and I hope you have a
great day
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