What is Fluid Air Bed Roasting?
We use a Fluid Air Bed style roasting. The Fluid Air Bed is a vortex of hot air inside of the roasting chamber. The vortex allows each individual bean to be roasted evenly and to perfection without tasting "burned". When the coffee beans pop and crack during air roasting, the skin on the beans called the chaff, is blown away from the beans and into a separate chamber (this is important because if the chaff stayed on, it would burn and smoke, giving the coffee a somewhat bitter, smoky flavor that would mask the natural flavor of the specific bean) The heat of air roasting is evenly distributed throughout the entire batch of coffee beans. Once the desired roast level is reached, the heat is cut off and triggers the cooling process.
Fluid Air Bed Roasting videos
The video below shows green coffee beans floating in a fluid bed of hot air at the beginning of the roast cycle. At this point, they are still very light in color with a light "green" appearance.
The next video shows the beans at the beginning of "first crack". This is when the beans begin to change color and becoming the more familiar color we all know as coffee. The cracking noise indicates the change in the size of the bean also. Because of the heating process, beans loose moisture and expand to almost double their original size. Listen closely and you can hear the cracking.
The video below, shows the beans after the "second crack". They are much darker now and at this point the beans are nearly finished roasting. Whew, now that's exciting!
Taste for yourself why Air Roasting makes better coffee.