Impact Coffee roasting operation soon to move into Water Street location

(by decorahnews.com's Ben Gardner):

In my interview with Jeff Brown (head roaster at Impact Coffee Bar), I expressed the view that—ideally—a business should solve a problem in a community. The problem that Impact is solving is: satisfying the demand for locally-roasted single origin coffee at a reasonable price. There's been a coffee renaissance the last couple decades: tastes are becoming more refined and roasters are learning more about ideal roasting techniques.

I visited Jeff at this roasting operation near his house outside of Decorah.

Jeff Brown typically roasts between 350 and 400 pounds of beans every other day at his roasting facility.  This morning, he's got a smaller batch on the agenda--about 75 pounds of beans. Today he's roasting for Impact, as well as special orders for Luther College, the Winneshiek Medical Center, and Fareway, among others.

With the launch of their new location last month, Jeff is busy roasting. "I've had to ramp up my production," he says. Specifically, Jeff has had to double his roasting production. It's a good problem for a business to have; nevertheless, it is a problem that has to be addressed. (He's presently revising his roasting schedule to address this issue and streamline roasting production.)

Put aside the mechanics and overhead of moving a business. More coffee being sold means more coffee needs to be roasted. Plus, more baristas need to be working to serve that increased demand. Again, good problems for a business to have; nevertheless, they need addressing. These, as well as countless others, are the types of problems that bombard a business owner. In addition to making a profit, much of running a business is problem solving: systematic, sustainable, cost-effective problem solving.

Part of the recent increased popularity at Impact, Jeff notes, is the novelty of the new location. People are eager to see the new space. Whether customers will continue to frequent the coffee bar in such high numbers, Jeff remains uncertain. But for the foreseeable future, he'll be doing more 10-pound and 15-pound single batches, whereas previously it was mostly 5-pound.

This morning, Jeff is only roasting 75 pounds of beans. It's a mid-week roast to catch up with special orders and resupply Impact. He begins by roasting batches for the Winneshiek Medical Center.

He fires up two roasters and over the next 15 minutes they warm up to around 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In the smaller roaster, he pours five pounds of beans and in the larger roaster 10 pounds. Over the next 11 to 15 minutes, the beans will revolve inside a closed drum, gradually heating up, expanding, and roasting. During this time, Jeff fiddles with nobs and adjusts settings, changing the roasting temperature, adjusting air flow, and changing the revolution speed of the drum.

Subtle adjustments in air flow and roasting temperature, Jeff says, have enormous consequences on the flavor profile of the bean. With a small number of ingredients—one—and only one device for roasting, small changes have enormous consequences. There are lots of opportunities to improve and plenty of opportunities to screw up.

Jeff has been home-brewing beer for over 15 years. He says that experience was helpful in learning the roasting process. In the beginning, he also reached out to roasting experts, but most of the learning, he says, has been through hands-on experience, experimenting with roasting temperature, air flow, drum speed, and timing.

To streamline roasting, Jeff typically operates two roasters at once. To do this efficiently, multi-tasking and thinking five batches in the future is essential. As soon as one batch is done, it's deposited into a cooling canister and Jeff deposits a fresh batch into the roaster and begins the process again. Depending on the type of bean, he'll adjust the heat, air flow, roast time, and drum speed to get the best flavor profile from the bean.

Jeff's roasting operation will soon change. In two weeks, they'll begin the process of moving roasting from the facility next to his home and into Impact's new home on Water Street. Jeff is excited about the move, but also nervous about changing many of the fundamentals of his roasting operation. There are a lot of problems to address when transferring a complicated roasting system to another facility—and this problem is made especially acute because roasting beans is the bedrock of Impact's business model. "One of these days," Jeff says, with a mixture of anxiety and excitement, "we'll have to pull the plug on the operation here and start officially in the new location."

I ask Jeff if he's improved as a roaster. He's not shy in admitting he's gotten better. "I thought I knew coffee," Jeff admits. "But I discovered there's a lot more nuance going on than you expect."

Jeff isn't alone, during the course of my two-hour interview and tour of the facility, I learned a great deal about something I already love: coffee.

Perhaps most importantly, since Jeff started roasting beans, it's made the standard of coffee much higher in our community. In the same way the Toppling Goliath and Pulpit Rock have increased many people's appreciation for beer, the same is true of Impact and coffee—it's raised the standard of a good local cup of coffee.