I bought this triple barrel Probat sample roaster in 1986. I believe it was made pre-1940s. Can anyone help me confirm this?
I was told their fabrication number lists the machine number for the year it was manufactured, then the year it was made. This one says 7515, suggesting it’s the 75th machine built in 1915. It’s hard to imagine this thing is over 110 years old.
Thornton Family Coffer Roasters uses it today, assisting our purchasing and QA while we buy raw coffee.
In 1986 an owner at Coffee Bean International, Jeff Ferguson asked me to find and buy a solid sample roaster to replace our broken glass Sirocco air roaster.
I found this in a magazine for used equipment. I don’t remember who we bought it from. It was shipped from Minnesota.
I called their landline listed and eventually followed up via US mail with a $2300 check. Purchase by CBI.
Between 1986 and 2014 we roasted tens of thousands of samples over nearly 20 years. I estimate, based on our usual amount of cuppings per day, we’ve roasted over 50,000 roasts on it. I know this thing like the back of my hand and today, it’s condition and operation has had no degradation since 1986.
I left CBI and Farmer Brothers in 2015. I offered to buy it. They sold it to me.
There are a number of these sample roasters almost exactly like this being used today. But what makes this roaster even more unique, aside from its age:
* It’s the only one of this style I’ve seen that has a nickel like snakeskin drum wrap. I’ve only seen sheet metal on others similar to it
* It was build in Germany when nickel was being hoarded for war usage.
* it is virtually indestructible with a weight of 200+ lbs.
* the drums have oil bushings rather than bearings
* it can and has been operated using natural gas and propane (I converted it to propane a few years ago and placed it on a rolling cart so it is mobile and can be taken anywhere).
* after so many years it still runs like new, at least for the last 40 years I’ve been using it. All parts are original except for the drive motor and vent pipes.
Roasting Coffee in a Microwave?
In early 1990s I was lucky enough to meet Orville Redenbacher. And he asked me why I wanted to try roasting coffee in a microwave.
Ok, so I wasn't expecting a real conversation about it, and didn’t expect the idea to lead to actually doing this. But….
The conversation lead me to explore the idea. Orville was my inspiration. Had I not had this conversation with him, I would have never tried.
My daughter Rachel is my business partner at Thornton Family Coffee Roasters. One day she asked what drove me to want to learn so much about coffee roasting. And I asked her what made her so smart.
Part of it was the people we surrounded ourselves with. We had the same main answer.
My next answer: I was surrounded by other people in coffee who had similar interests in learning and exploring coffee roasting. Like Orville was in the popcorn industry.
While exploring heat transfer through coffee roasting in the 1990s it was nearly impossible to find true experts on this topic.
I had such a deep interest in understanding how heat transfer….radiant….conductive…convective…. affected sensory impact. The taste.
How can I insert heat quickly, to roast coffee without tipping, scorching or facing and at the same time, roast beans at a fast pace while transferring heat evenly into the center of the bean. And make it taste good.
A day with Orville! The heat transfer genius. “Microwave” he says, ‘now why would you want to try that with raw coffee’. I think I replied, why did you want to try it with popcorn? We had the same answer…because we could and nobody else thought it would ever work so they never explored it to any depth.
I never did find a way to roast coffee with a good outcome using a microwave. I’m not afraid to say I tried!
My best result was using very old dried out green. There was still too much moisture remaining inside the very brittle coffee bean cells.
I did learn a lot about heat transfer that day. And how to nearly catch a microwave on fire. I don’t recommend trying this at home.
That day I learned not to be afraid to go against the grain and explore with ideas even though others thought it was crazy. I’m a sucker for going against normal. Almost faction like.
Orville Redenbacher was a true entrepreneur. He said his biggest mistake was underestimating the demand for microwave popcorn. This resulted in disappointed grocery store buyers who could not keep their shelves stocked.
RIP Orville, thank you for taking the time with little young me. It was people like Orville who aspired my interest. The people I surrounded myself with.
Passing The Torch
As a wholesale roaster in the coffee industry it’s so important to know your capabilities and what coffees fit best for your customers. Here is an example of this. But in this case, the customers were Coffee Judges.
The Coffee Roasters Guild had their annual retreat in 2023 in Blaine Washington. It was my 20th time I had attended this event. I attended with my son Ben (his first RG Retreat) and another of our production employees.
We had three attendees from Thornton Family Coffee Roasters (TFCR). The RG had their usual team competition. 175 people broken down to 17 teams. All three of us ended up on separate teams.
The goal: to win the event and bring home the trophy by developing a blend that would be a first place winner. We had three people on different teams, so three chances out of 17 teams, for a first place win.
My son Ben is head roaster for TFCR. His brain is a sponge. What goes into it seems to stay there. He absorbed a decade of information from being an amazing listener in less than five years.
Ben mentored by my side for five years. We still roast together but he is now our head roaster and runs our production. He continues to learn the details of coffee roasting. All of the details. This includes matching roast profiles to specific events, clients and their demographics.
Work toward understanding what fits best for who.
The Roasters Guild competition: The rules required each team to spend two days developing one single blend and submit a 2lb sample into the tasting competition.
The judges in Blaine, the ones who were scoring the various teams blend submissions were the customer!
All three of our attendees spent the next 24 hours interviewing the judges. Although they likely didn’t know it. It was through casual conversation. We needed to learn what type of roast profiles the judges preferred.
The result, Ben’s team took first place, mine took third (yes, my sons first competition beat my 40+ years of coffee experience), and our other employee’s team took fourth. My heart was so full! Our head roaster, my son, knew the goal and took the trophy home.
Ben understood the goal. Made it not about him. Ben managed his team toward what the demographic liked. Not necessarily what the team liked. He reminded his team that it’s not about them. But what the judges like. And he did it with strong willed people who had more years of experience.
It goes to show you, it’s so important to know your capabilities and what fits best for your customers. Bravo Ben!
Paul and Gourmet Magazine, 1987
I started as a coffee roaster in 1982 for Coffee Bean International (CBI) in Portland. I’ve been in coffee ever since.
In the 1980s Gourmet Magazine was often used for coffee advertisements. In the 1980s Probat, a German roaster manufacturer had just designed a 90kilo recirculating roaster. A prototype, the beginning of the Excelsior designed to offer high volume airflow and utilized the efficiency of exhaust recirculation.
CBI and Probat ran this below advertisement in Gourmet Magazine for the September 1987 edition, to promote the roasting machine and CBIs commitment to experimentation. I’m the person at the roaster.
I appreciated the opportunity to have trialed and tested this amazing roasting machine. I learned so much. We were roasting 30 kilos in 5 minutes. We were roasting 90 kilos in 12 minutes. Two very different profiles. The 5 minute roast was strikingly sweeter than the 12 minute roast, both roasted to the same color. Back then, this sweeter profile was somewhat of a new experience.
Today my son Ben and I roast for our own wholesale company, Thornton Family Coffee Roasters. My daughter Rachel is my business partner and four of my other adult children work with us. We are having a blast growing our business.
