Start your own coffee roastery

Want to start your own roastery?

For coffee lovers, there is hardly a more intense experience than the aroma of freshly roasted beans. The path to your own roastery offers you the chance to take your passion to the next level and realise your personal vision of enjoyment in every cup.

As a master roaster, you work with people and coffees from all over the world, leaving your mark on every roast. Whether you run a roastery or want to roast for your café yourself – it's about producing coffee with heart and soul.

With your own roastery, you can also earn entrepreneurial freedom. You decide on varieties, quality, roasting, packaging, and marketing. There are many ways to start – from very large, if the right financing is in place, to small. Many successful roasteries today started part-time and have steadily evolved. With the right equipment and a clear plan, your dream will become a reality.

To turn your dream into a functioning roastery, you need not only passion and creativity but also the right technical equipment. Here we give you an overview of the most important machines and tools that will accompany you from the first steps to production. We will discuss equipment below that you need in the initial stages of establishing a commercial roastery. After that, you will find a comprehensive checklist of devices and tools that you can gradually acquire as your roastery grows.

Your roasting machine is the heart of the roastery. It determines the quality of your roasts and enables you to precisely control the flavors of the beans. Depending on the scale of production and your goals, there are different models that may be suitable for you.

With the help of your business plan, you can determine which machine is best for you. Pay special attention to:

- Capacity – with enough reserve for your growth

- Power source and energy consumption

- Measurement methods and adjustment options

- Integration with Artisan, Cropster, or your own software like RoasTime

- Automation possibilities

- Service & Support (very important!)

- Costs

Roaster: Aillio Bullet R2 Pro

Commercial roasters are a relatively large investment, heavy and not very mobile, and require additional installations, e.g. for power or gas supply, exhaust air, as well as permits and approvals from authorities. When starting a business, these costs need to be weighed against how much coffee you will actually produce and how quickly you will grow, as both a machine that is too large or too small will hinder the implementation of your plans.

At the same time, you need to build a customer base and find out which beans, roast levels, and blends resonate best with your target audience. Most roasteries end up facing a different reality than what they had envisioned in their business plan. That's why more and more roasteries are starting with a compact and mobile machine like the Aillio Bullets. These devices only require a conventional power supply (230V) and a cost-effective exhaust air solution. They are affordable, lightweight, and can be easily placed or moved by hand wherever suits you best.

Depending on the model, you can produce approximately 3 kg to 4.5 kg of coffee per hour, allowing you to build a customer base and a range of coffee. This provides you with planning security for the later purchase of your first "large" production roaster.

Aillio offers three different models. For commercial roasteries, we recommend the Aillio Bullet R2 Pro with a maximum power consumption of 2,300 W, a capacity of 1.2 kg per batch, numerous sensors ensuring high precision and consistency, and a powerful cooling tray. Depending on the degree of roast brightness, your roasting style, and your work processes, the machine allows you to roast approximately 4.5 kg of coffee per hour.

Even if you later purchase a larger roaster, you can resell this device at a good price or continue to use it as a small roaster for roast profiles or nano lots.

Sample Roaster

One of your most important tasks in the roastery will be the selection and purchase of green coffee beans. The green coffee should correspond to the character of your coffees, be of the highest possible quality, fresh, and as consistent as possible. Typically, you will receive 50-100g samples from coffee producers and green coffee traders and only have one chance to roast these samples in order to make a purchasing decision or maintain quality control. For this reason, a sample roaster for small batches is one of your most important tools.

Nucleus Link

The Nucleus Link is a highly precise sample roaster designed for roasteries to evaluate coffee samples before large purchases and roasting production. With a capacity of 50 to 100 grams, it is ideal for testing small amounts of green coffee beans, which is particularly important when it comes to verifying the quality of coffee varieties and selecting the best batches for purchase.

What sets the Nucleus Link apart from all other devices on the market is that it comes with over 700 roasting profiles and a system that allows you to easily select the perfect profile for the specific coffee. This allows each sample to be roasted individually, evaluating the full potential of the coffee.

The Nucleus Link comes with free software and an app to help you find the best roasting profile and optimal settings. Additionally, the machine can be calibrated to the sea level where you are located, ensuring that the samples taste the same regardless of the location. This is particularly valuable if you frequently travel to coffee-producing countries.

The choice of the right green coffee has the greatest impact on the taste of your coffee. Therefore, you will spend a lot of time searching for and selecting green coffees. Quantity planning is often a challenge - if you take too small quantities, you may end up with empty shelves; if you take too large quantities, you risk the coffee becoming stale. A significant part of the price of your coffee consists of logistics and packaging costs. Therefore, the kilo price will be more favourable the larger your quantities are. Especially in the start-up phase, many roasteries find that whole sacks or even pallets are still too large quantities for them - for these customers, we offer a wide and diverse range of green coffees in a solid 15 kg bag-in-box packaging with vacuum-sealed Ecotact bags, so that the coffees stay fresh for a long time. In our shop, you will find filtering options for different coffee profiles (e.g. classic espresso or fruity filter coffee). If you need help with your selection, we are always available to assist you.

To the green coffees

A crucial aspect of commercial roasting is constant analysis and quality assurance. Only through continuous monitoring of the roasting process and results ensure that your coffee always meets your customers' high expectations. The right analysis tools are essential for collecting precise data and making informed decisions.

Colour Measurement Devices

Studies show that the colour of roasted coffee accounts for about 80% of its influence on taste. With a colour measurement device, you can determine the exact roast level required for the desired flavour profiles. Precise roast level determination helps you find the perfect balance between acidity, sweetness, and bitterness, which is crucial for your coffee's quality. Additionally, a colour measurement device helps minimise roast variations and ensure consistent quality.

For example, if your coffee is slightly underdeveloped at times and slightly overdeveloped at others, your customers – especially in the hospitality industry – will experience under- or over-extracted coffees, leading to guest complaints and a high likelihood of them changing coffee suppliers sooner or later.

The colour measurement devices from Lighttells and DiFluid have proven particularly reliable, precise, user-friendly, and comparatively affordable.

View the devices

Green Coffee Analysis

Instruments for measuring the density and moisture content, ideally even the water activity of your coffees, are essential for warehouse management and quality control of your coffee upon arrival in storage as well as during storage itself. These are measurements that influence how you roast the coffees and can help you extract even more flavour from your coffees and increase the quality of your roasted coffees.

Here too, we can highly recommend the devices from Lighttells and DiFluid. Lighttells is a well-established provider, while DiFluid is a newer provider that offers very high-quality and cost-effective devices.

View the measuring instruments

Besides this essential equipment, there is a large number of other devices and equipment that will significantly improve the work processes, automations, as well as the efficiency and ergonomics of your roastery. You won't need everything right at the beginning, but the list is intended to support you in planning and selection.