Show 494 Sunday 9 September

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Sunday Kitchen #63 Roasting Coffee at Oso Negro

This is the world headquarters of Oso Negro.
Oso Negro is a café and roastery in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.
A few days before we left Nelson, we went to the Oso Negro roastery to check out how they roast their coffee.

step one: get some beans
The bags of beans are pretty heavy - about 150 pounds - so it helps if you have a machine like this to lift them.

step two: check for rocks
This machine separates the rocks from the coffee beans.
These are all rocks and other stuff that has come out of the coffee – over a long period of time though, not just out of one bag.

step three: roast
Each batch is roasted for about 12 to 15 minutes.
The machine runs on gas.
About 30 to 35 pounds of beans are roasted at one time.
When they’re almost ready the roaster continually checks the beans. He’s checking the colour of the beans to see if they are ready. He has to keep checking because the colour changes very quickly.
When they look like they are done, open the flap.
There’s a fan sucking all the smoke in. This is what the smoke looks like if you turn the fan off.

step four: cool the beans
The beans get pushed around like this so that they cool down. There’s a fan which sucks air through which also helps to cool them.
The roaster watches the beans to check the colour and to see if there are any black beans which have been roasted twice.

step five: empty the chaff
When the beans are roasting a kind of skin comes off which they call chaff. It burns easily so it’s a fire hazard and you need to empty this occasionally.

step six: mix a blend
Take a few different kinds of beans and mix them together to make a blend.
This mixer is an adapted cement mixer.
And while we were there a new mixer arrived. They said they need a bigger mixer to save time.

step seven: pack the coffee
Stamp some bags.
Put the coffee into bags.
And put the bags into a box.

notes

We don't say pounds in NZ. I decided to say pounds because that's what they use.
Here is a conversion:
150 pounds = 68 kgs
30-35 pounds = 13-15 kgs

I said chaff the way it is said in Canada. I think it is pronounced differently in NZ.

Oso Negro means black bear in Spanish.

You can buy Oso Negro coffee at many places in BC and Alberta, Canada.
Here's a list.

You can also order coffee to be sent anywhere in the world. Click here.

links

Oso Negro