Tim with his restored Royal #5 roasting machine
Royal 5 Roasters is borne out of a desire to revive the craftsmanship of old world style coffee roasting, We use a restored Royal 5 (patented in 1914) coffee roaster, give painstaking attention to process detail, and combine modern techniques in cooling and packaging to produce some of the finest coffee you’ve ever tasted.
Tim began his coffee roasting journey on a small air roaster, and was intrigued that seemingly minor changes in variables (air flow, heat, and speed) could dramatically alter the flavor of the resulting brew. Wanting to have more control over these parameters, he purchased a small manual drum roaster, on which the primary heat source was wood chunk charcoal! This roaster gave Tim the opportunity to truly explore craft roasting, and fall in love with the process. However, the drum was quite small, and his coffee jar was emptying ever more quickly.
In 2019 Tim began looking for a roaster that could produce a good quantity roasted coffee while still giving manual control over the roasting variables, so a quality craft coffee could be created. He and a good friend, Philip Burrow, came across a rough, but functioning, Royal #5 Coffee Roaster in rural Wisconsin. Patented in 1914, the roaster was an absolute work of art, and they knew it was the machine to carry this journey forward. After spending many hours cleaning, restoring, and learning the machine, Tim has a process that produced truly wonderful coffee, and began selling to the public in 2019 under the name Royal 5 Roasters.
craft coffee revival
The Royal #5 Roaster was patented at a time when American Coffee Roasting had hit its peak just as American values were shifting from craft to convenience. In the year 1900, Hills Brothers invented vacuum packing for coffee enabling mass production and mass distribution. Instant coffee was also invented that year and accounted for 200 million pounds of coffee sales each year! Who can argue with the convenience of instant coffee or the cost savings of vacuum-sealed, mass-produced coffee. Craft coffee roasters went out of business by the thousands.
Our search for the perfect cup of coffee took us over 100 years into the past with a century-old coffee roaster, the Royal #5. It is a craftsman’s roaster without dials, gauges, and automation—and that can be a good thing. The core art of craft coffee roasting cannot be turned over to machines and left on auto-pilot. It is a craft for the human senses. Every batch of green coffee beans is different. The atmospheric conditions of any given day varies. And the results of the roasting process must be attended by a curator of the process. Determining when to vent some fresh air into the roasting drum is a function of sight and smell. Listening for “first crack,” the louder and duller crack of the outer layer of the coffee bean announces the approach of a light-level of roast. The sounds of the second crack, the softer but snappier crack of the inner core of the bean announces the approach of dark roast. Any roaster who programs a roasting profile and puts in earbuds, reads magazine, or leaves the roaster unattended has left craft and curation and misplaces faith in automated processes.
At Royal 5 Roasters, we carefully attend to the development of the coffee beans. We vent graduated amounts of fresh air into the roasting drum both to control development as well as to vent out smoke for the cleanest tasting roasts. Our cooling process provides for maximum extraction of the natural sugars contained in the beans. When samplers taste our flavorful coffees without the bitterness they have come to expect, many sugar-users declare, “I don’t even need sugar with this coffee.” It is that smooth and the aftertastes carry the beans’ distinctives, not a bitter aftertaste.
All of our roasting takes place the first week of each month. Orders placed in weeks 2-4 will be roasted the first week of the following month.
Note: These foods are homemade and not subject to state inspection. We are a cottage food producer and do not ship coffee. We can deliver to you if you are within 20 miles of Rochester, Minnesota, for $4.99 or you can make arrangements to pick up at our home in Oronoco, Minnesota. For delivery to your home, select our $4.99 delivery option at checkout. Tim Graham, 829 River Park Lane SE, Oronoco, MN, 55960. 507-202-4112. License #20203247.