Anne Cooper of Equilibrium Master Roasters helps coffee roasters of all experience levels transition to Loring roasting technology without a hitch.
Transitioning from familiar equipment to something new can be intimidating for even the most experienced roasters. Possible factors to consider include production downtime, profile matching, and maintaining consistency.
Thankfully, coffee roasting consultants such as Anne Cooper of Equilibrium Master Roasters help alleviate these stresses.
Anne is a 30-year veteran of the specialty coffee scene, beginning her career as a barista and rapidly rising the ranks to Barista Champion, Q Grader, production roaster, SCA Roasters Guild council member, and beyond. After becoming Head Roaster at Proud Mary in Melbourne, she felt the call back to training and started her own roast consulting business, Equilibrium Master Roasters (EQMR). In early 2024, she became the Loring-Certified Trainer for Australia and New Zealand.
One of the core aims of EQMR is to use Anne’s experience to make the transition between different roasting systems easier for roasters at every experience level.
“I think the biggest challenge for roasters is overcoming the fear of ‘will the coffee taste the same’ to their customers,” says Anne.
“If a roaster doesn’t know how they want to roast or hasn’t been capturing key roast data on their profiles, then the transition process can be unnecessarily complicated.”
With her industry knowledge and Loring certification, she uses tools like Loring’s Roast Architect software to illustrate how technology can support a roaster’s goals and improve consistency, making the roaster transition seamless.
“Through my research on matching profiles between machines, [I’m] able to show roasters some best practices for profile matching,” she says.
“I then use these when helping a roaster move from another system to the Loring [to] get their roaster up and running as fast and efficiently as possible after installation.”
Anne recently worked with Pip Heath, Director of Patricia Coffee Brewers in Melbourne, when he decided to move from a traditional drum roaster to Loring’s roast technology.
“I’m so thankful that I sought help from Anne,” Pip says.
“We were able to switch from roasting on a 12-kilogram roaster to a Loring 15 kilogram Falcon without missing a single production day or compromising on quality. Anne’s guidance was thorough and it was clear she was as invested in our success as we were.”
According to Anne, all it took was about an hour of planning in Roast Architect with Pip’s existing profiles and Patricia Coffee was able to head straight into production. Cupping of the initial batches was a success – Pip was immediately happy with the results.
Other Loring transition success stories include Brew Coffee Roasters in Perth, Pablo & Rusty’s in Sydney, and Arthurs Creek Coffee Company in Warrandyte. Anne frequently helps clients move over and get tranining on their new system within a single day.
If there’s one word of advice Anne would give to roasters concerned about making an equipment switch, it’s: “Just make sure a roaster has all the key roast profile data and samples of the products to match, as this will make creating Loring profiles super easy in Roast Architect. [It makes] the whole process of moving to a Loring super smooth and enjoyable.”
Roasters can find Anne Cooper at anne@eqmr.com.au (email), Equilibrium Master Roasters, or Instagram @roastresscoops.
For more information on Loring, click here.