With the purpose of helping coffee growers in the region, a research group from the School of Administration and Marketing of Quindío (EAM) undertook the task of designing equipment that will improve the roasting of the grain and that in turn could generate greater profitability for coffee growers.
Professors Néstor Iván Marín and Alexander Vasco, attached to the Mechatronics engineering program of the EAM, created the dynamic coffee roasting system, a project that includes an intelligent roasting assistant that allows the same roasting profile to be replicated as many times as necessary, ensuring the desired quality.
According to the experts, the roasting profile is the process that highlights the flavors of the coffee through the relationship between time, temperature and visible or auditory signals during the roasting curve. However, the EAM teachers found that many coffee growers lost money after carrying out the roasting process because the managers of the roasters did not assure them that they had the same previous profile.
”45% of the final value of the coffee is given by the roasting, that part of the process gives it a great added value. Many coffee growers must export green beans because they do not have the capacity or the equipment to roast and they lose a large portion of money. And those who do roast it in the country, most of them make it up, that is, they pay to have it roasted, but they are not guaranteed that they will always have the same flavor,” explained researcher-teacher Alexander Vasco.
And although there is automated equipment that monitors the roasting curve, it is too expensive for coffee growers who, in most cases, do not have the resources to buy a roaster.
According to data from the Quindío coffee study carried out by the Armenian Chamber of Commerce, during 2021 each roasting plant in the department manufactured at least 18 coffee brands, in addition to its own brand.
”What coffee grower, who only has a few hectares to grow the grain, is going to put 120 million pesos or more into a team of those. What we did was look for simpler tools to do the same thing as one of those teams and we added several more things to it,” added Vasco.
The teachers ordered a manual toaster to be manufactured, but with some improvements that were needed to install the additional parts and incorporate the created software.
”The people who roast are expert roasters, they have a whole ritual for this work and depending on how they roast it, the coffee can vary, since there are between 120 and 160 types of flavors and aromas. In the roast you can throw a coffee or on the contrary give it a special plus. Any change is as if it were another coffee and there is no business that is sustained with so many variants,” said the teacher.
The equipment designed has several ways to make toasts and its use is friendly to anyone. It can be manipulated by both an expert roaster and a modest coffee grower, after programming the necessary parameters and saving the roasting profile.
”The software has a database and saves the curves created there. The automatic mode can be used, loading the required curve and then the equipment will replicate it, ensuring the aromas and flavors regardless of external factors such as cold, heat, etc,” added the teacher.
The university has already started the process of registering the industrial secret and patent before the competent authorities.
Meanwhile, several coffee growers in the department make their coffee using this equipment, and in addition to this, the university is developing a pilot test with the production of Don Narciso coffee, whose roasting is also carried out with this equipment.
This coffee produced by the EAM was created in homage to the founder of the university, Narciso Concha. Its roasting profile was created by an expert and for a few months it has been marketed in Plaza Málaga, a tourist viewpoint located in the village of Pueblo Tapao. Coffee drinks such as cappuccino, latte and others are prepared there and bags of ground coffee are sold.
”We have been doing an analysis, the idea is also to bring roasted coffee to the United States and open a store there. Samples have already been sent to several universities and they have really liked the coffee. The idea is to generate resources for the research group to be self-sustaining,” said David Concha, health coordinator at the EAM institution.
And he added that this project “has been a challenge for the engineers and for the university, which has invested a number of resources in it.”
LAURA SEPULVEDA
FOR THE TIME
ARMENIA
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