i guess now we'll talk about the wood roasting and why he chose the wood roast, and how we came up with that idea so maybe you talk about like about what your thoughts are. why do you think
how to roast coffee beans in the oven, that because i know that we will talk about it. well first of all, how many years did we not would roast? i think only two or three maybe maybe 3 or 4 years.
i'm not sure well, didn't we just start on an old turkish coffee roaster? so we started roasting with gasoline. yes, we were using gas to roast our coffee and we were and we were selling roasters, so that that's how we got into doing is selling the roasting of course captain want to roasting and demoing the roasters. we were importing the turkish roasters and we got this old one.
and we started using in the way way that it was set up to rose right gas, and we were using lp. so then we decided to start roasting with wood. but we did have a conversation one day about roasting coffee in general, and how to be unique. because after all, there's probably a million coffee roasters out there and they're all kind
of using the same process of roasting. same methods yeah it's so it's the same roasters. they're all just doing the same thing, and the only thing that makes them unique or different is their recipe or the beans that they use or the combination of the beans that they use we've got gas roasters, there is some electric roasters that use a little but of hot air.
but that's pretty unpopular. they're starting to become a little awkward but not you know not as popular as traditional drum roasters. you got drum spinning you gotta a flame on the bottom which would be gas and i don't think that i think the big one was, the reason why we probably chose to start working with wood was i was researching old ways of doing things
because i'm really i love the old ways and in italy they always roasted with wood back in the old days because it has gas. you know gas is a fairly modern thing. and what i liked about the wood was we could use the would off our own property. we've got seven acres so that's nice so we have a sustainable. but the first challenge would be to modify our roaster
so that it could roast better. you cuz i will sail without gap that was not easy of but we did build a custom firebox and then had the rear out venting and it was kind of complicated but we did do it we manufactured a box for it, and prevented it, and i think the big one was, that you know and i was very curious. there's a couple of roasters still in italy.
that roast with wood, and it's and i think the big thing for me was it actually did taste better. it had an effect on the coffee. so you're adding a different dimension to the coffee. what defined it for me or what was the endgame was we tasted before and after we get gas and we did a gas version of the same blend in the same style roast. exactly the same
color everything and then we did a wood roast and i was like "man!" we both were were just blown away by the flavor and it wasn't like the coffee that we first did with the gas was bad in fact it was fantastic it's just that the wood added a different dimension. wouldn't you agree that yeah well and i also think that once
that was realized, that the wood was giving it a completely different feeling and it gave it like a different flavor. then we started to go further into understanding maybe different kinds of woods, would then take it even further as far as different flavors just based on the wood that you're roasting. and so we would use alder, or we
would get some applewood or find some tree that came down. that was walnut and try you know anything hazelnut and i think that just using different woods started to give it different feelings and flavors and nuances. whether it was freaky or smoky or whatever right now so right now we currently use i think an alder and cherry, in front of our base
because that's what grows on our property. but we also sometimes get hazelnut, that like last year we got a bunch of hazelnut, that was taken from a hazelnut orchard. as a i guess they cut down the old he left orchards, and they replant them for whatever reasons. so we got a bunch of that and that adds kind of an interesting nuance, and sometimes they even get something at the apple but it's
not as often and we have some apple trees on her property so but again we use our barrels my leftover barrel because we replaced the barrels yeah, so we can burn the barrel staves, and that's oak of course. well i think another thing to recognize that's important is that, is that the tradition of actually roasting with wood isn't always
necessarily easy or efficient. in the way that you would have to man the whole thing the whole time there's no press buttons there's no timer really there isn't a "just like put it out and always have a consistency" and so that's what makes it handmade that's what makes it natural and that's what gives it more of a
hands-on product when you do taste the coffee because you know things are not done by robots i mean they are, but they maybe shouldn't be. yeah i agree. this isn't one of those things and in a lot of times people you know want to understand the process of how it looks when you're doing it and and how long does it take and what is
the temperature that you're at. and you think that's the one thing that you have to learn as you go is that this isn't easy and you know you have to build a fire. you don't just walk in and turn on the lights, and turn on the roaster. and start working yet push button or run out your laptop which is funny because that's what a lot of people have gone to these crazy you know
automated things which is often if you're doing a massive roasting operation and you want to be super consistent. well that's why it's not popular. that's why there's only like four people in the united states that even bother doing it because it isn't something that going to be easy to do. but i don't think that our that
millar's wood roasted coffee is going to be a scalable like to this huge manufacturing plant will never be some of the large guys because it is a practical know which is okay because we do it because we love it, and we do it because it's a it's a niche market, and it's it's all about you know. it's like i was i always tell
people like it's sort of like wood fired pizza versus a gas or electric pizza oven. you know wood fired pizza because is usually made on a small scale and it's special you know it has a special appeal to certain people it's back to the old ways. but i think the inspiring thing that you and i always talk about whenever we talk about by all the things we do whether it
be pull espresso machines, would roast coffee barrel-aging those type of things i think what's inspiring for us is that we always look at the the past and take always ask the question i i know i always ask you this, it's like one of the what are one of the old ways of doing things like was it better and then if it was better, than let's do that.
you know, and obviously there's within reason of practicality but i i just i'm just still be sold out on that. well i think that there's always going to be a clientele of people out there that embrace more of a natural or a genuine way of doing anything. whether it's copy your or making espresso or whatever you're doing and i think that that's something that you and
i try to embrace. i don't think this is like oh we should do it because it's the the trend i think that we would do it either way and for some reason there's always going to be a group of people out there that that share that same concept whether it's a trend or not for them and they're gonna realize that i
like things done by hand, and maybe not by a machine and you see it in cooking and everything we're in our people are just like you know. i don't want to buy a frozen pie in the freezer i want one that somebody made by hand and i'm willing to pay more to have it done that way or you know whatever their reason is and i think it's inspiring.
i think it's inspiring that that we can still make products like that small you know small batch by hand i mean that's inspiring i think that means like i called the slow coffee movement or slow food movement or farm the table whatever you want to call it that was where you pick the food and then, you cook with it or you
understand the process it's a natural process i actually always thought i've never understood why would you take something that's organic and it has all these organic practice to it and then either sort of plastic or or roasted with gas which is a petroleum product and like and people don't realize that your food if it comes to
directly contact with petroleum and it's really you know maybe split me multiple think it's splitting hairs but i don't think it is you're refusing that coffee is getting totally saturated with that gas with that petroleum product of there is some residuals. you can't tell me there isn't some residuals off of that so if i roasted with the natural wood
we're also getting the benefit of not using petroleum to cook that you know cook that food is a food product so you know i think it's important i think it just it follows an alignment with an organic practice to start to finish you're not starting our organic and ending up with using petroleum at the end, or storing it that way you know so
it's a i think it's important you know and i think that works inspired for and that's why we did it. and i think that it's great that not everybody is doing it, i think that it's like that's a reality to say if this was being done by the masses and maybe it wouldn't be will be special and it wouldn't be easy life and it's running
again it's not practical do it while
delivering to the masses, and then what is that saying? if not everybody's doing it, then maybe you know just the movement itself is something that will always be unique
