Tim Wendelboe, a specialty coffee icon known for delivering high quality coffee out of Oslo, has been a Sovda customer since the spring of 2020—only moments before COVID-19 struck Europe.

Gaining notoriety for his expertise in setting up an efficient roastery within a small space, we are often asked what Tim thinks about Sovda’s Pearl Mini and Sovda’s Lifts that convey coffee in and out of the color sorter.

In this article, we will sum up some of the basic points. But if you want to hear the full interview, click below for the podcast. Our exclusive interview between Tim Wendelboe and Sovda CEO, Maxime Boegler.

Snapshot of Sovda’s equipment within Tim’s production lineup:

A Sovda Lift conveys coffee into the Pearl Mini which is connected to another Lift that conveys coffee into an Action Pack coffee machine located five meters away. The Pearl Mini is not hooked to the coffee packing machine since there was a need to weigh the coffee and there was also a lack of space directly outside the roaster.

What has Tim’s experience been integrating the Pearl Mini into the workflow?

Integrating the color sorter has not delayed the production since the conveyor is able to run the coffee at 4kg/minute as it sorts through the Pearl Mini, so there is no wait time with a 35kg roaster. And at Tim Wendelboe’s roastery they have one color profile that fits almost all of their coffees. They are able to do this because they use high quality coffee, which makes all the coffees very consistent. For certain coffee, such as naturals with a lot of quakers, Tim and his team adjust the color profiles on the go by tweaking what the system recognizes as a quaker.

Tim’s roastery only has one person who is dedicated to the color sorter and packing since the two machines are connected.

“Have someone dedicated to the color sorter because it helps them to know when to bring the coffee into the color sorter and when to bring it out the next step.” Tim said. “There’s no problem with coordinating which coffee is which. We use a little whiteboard sign and it’s easy to wipe off and write a new one.”

We talked to Tim about his experience using the Pearl Mini after over two years of ownership, his cleaning routines, how the color sorter has improved his coffee quality, and how to deal with bottlenecks in the production line.

Check out Tim’s Roastery (and catch the Pearl Mini in action)

What’s Tim’s cleaning and maintenance routine?

• Cleans the cyclone once a month

• Cleans the Pearl Mini every day with compressed air and a microfiber cloth for the screen.

• Cleans the Pearl Mini between batches with compressed air. This is for optimal quality performance.

During our interview with Tim, he mentioned how the color sorter is a low risk machine. He noted that, “it’s not a crisis if it doesn’t work out.” Meaning, if something were to happen and the sorter isn’t working correctly, it does not impact the rest of production.

“But in general we have had very little down time.” Tim said. “I think that’s happened only once or twice over the last two and half years. And again that was because of human error. I think if you maintain your equipment well, that’s really the key to make things run smoothly.”

What does Tim do with the beans that are rejected?

At the end of each roasting day, Tim resorts all the beans that were rejected. From that batch, Tim sells the good coffee for a discounted price, noting that it’s not coffee of the highest quality.

“When we did this exercise, when we saw that we had a full bucket of quakers in one run, that means we are actually sorting out a little bit more than we need from our kind of best coffee.” Tim said. “And then from that bucket of rejects, when we sorted it one more time and I cupped it, the coffee tasted pretty good. That just means it’s a blend of many different coffees and there might be an occasional quaker inside but its still pretty good coffee.”

As for the quakers, Tim has an agreement with a local oyster mushroom farmer who uses the rejected coffee in her compost to grow her oyster mushrooms.

Is the color sorter worth the investment?

Tim gets this question a lot. The answer is slightly complex.

Tim suggests that if you have the money to invest into your coffee roastery, you should begin with better quality green coffee. Because if you start with high quality green coffee, the need for a color sorter is not as high. However, although Tim purchases high quality coffee, he knows that when his customers buy these coffees, they are expecting the best coffee. For this reason, he cannot afford to have a quaker in his coffee, which is why the color sorter is necessary.

“Maybe for a barista that brews 15 grams of coffee at a time, you can pick out all the quakers by hand.” Tim said. “But when you’re selling coffee to you know restaurants and cafes that might be brewing two, three, four liters at a time—it’s super important because a few quakers will really make the brew taste like popcorn and peanuts.”

The color sorter also allows Tim to continue purchasing from farmers even after they have a difficult season. This is important to roasters like Tim who prioritize investing into farms and farmers.

Does the impact on quality actually matter?

Tim notes that you might buy coffee from a producer who uses a mechanical debris remover instead of water to grade the coffees. Which means that you will naturally receive more quakers in your coffee. Unless you’ve done more extensive work at the dry mill. In summary, every coffee has different needs which is why Tim prefers to be safe than sorry.

“Our customers expect the highest quality, so that means we have very little acceptance for quakers.” Tim said. “Better we got the color sorter. We didn't do any sort of sorting other than picking it out by hand and you don’t get a full bucket of rejects by doing that during a day so I would say that it has improved our quality tremendously.”

Want to know more about the Sovda Pearl Mini?

Want to hear the full interview with Tim? Listen here:

Our first interview with Tim was one of Sovda’s first-ever podcasts. You can check it out here. In our first interview, Tim talked about how to create an efficient roastery.