It’s All About the Technology

Technology has become an essential part of our day-to-day lives. The internet has been made accessible just about everywhere we turn. Airports, work facilities, universities, coffee shops, and sometimes you can even sync up on the street.
Whether you have an iPhone, a Blackberry, or the Galaxy, our smartphones allow us to gain access to just about every aspect of our lives – bank accounts, social media, and even various forms of entertainment. I mean, let’s be honest – everyone feels a little lost without his or her smart phone.
This attachment is the same for the coffee industry. New products, software, and technologies are constantly being invented. Technology eases the struggles of seemingly meaningless, but necessary, tasks. It allows us to do things more efficiently and more effectively, usually in little time. We have become so dependent on technology that we are constantly looking for ways to improve current models.
Here is the scoop on the latest technologies within the coffee industry…
Diedrich Roaster Technology
Diedrich Manufacturing and Diedrich roasters utilize infrared burner technology that offers efficiency in design and function with greater controllability during the roasting process. The infrared burners, combined with cost-effective heat exchangers, provide thermally stable and extremely clean, hot air as the roasting medium.
The more common atmospheric or blue flame burners primarily produce hot, dirty air in the roasting process. In atmospheric burners the blue flames are adjusted up and down creating inconsistent heat and greater temperature fluctuations. These fluctuations result in inconsistent coffee profiles.
The infrared technology in Diedrich roasters provides the ability to control the roasting medium through conductive and convective heat creating consistent cup quality, and increased “signature” coffees.
The benefits of Diedrich Infra-red technology are:
1)     The negative effects of contaminated burner gases are minimized.
2)     Heat exchangers provide clean, hot air to ensure stable temperatures.
3)     The Diedrich roasting drum is an excellent conductor for transferring heat into the coffee.
Every Diedrich roaster is a handcrafted, industrial work-of-art blending state-of-the-art technology with innovative engineering concepts.
Coffee Shop Manager
Coffee Shop Manager is an innovative point of sale software solution that helps specialty coffee retailers manage their entire business- from inventory control to marketing. Designed specifically for the coffee industry, by dedicated coffee professionals, Coffee Shop Manager offers retailers a system to make order taking quicker and easier with conversational ordering, customizable menus, and line-busting self-serve ordering kiosks.
Coffee Shop Manager empowers store owners and managers to make informed business decisions and streamline management with built-in inventory and employee time clock functionality.  With Coffee Shop Manager, Granbury Restaurant Solutions brings the coffee industry a completely integrated and automated loyalty marketing tool, allowing local businesses to compete with companies that market on a national level.
The automated loyalty marketing technology in Coffee Shop Manager enables business owners to strengthen their relationships with their customers and build a community through personalized email and text message marketing.
Coffee Shop Manager works on traditional point of sale systems, tablets, and even smartphone ordering to provide businesses with flexible, easy-to-use ways to take an order, wherever the customer might be located.
Behmor, Inc.- The Brazen Home Coffee Brewer
The Brazen Home Coffee Brewer uses a new and innovative technology that has not previously been used in a home coffee brewer. The technology includes an exciting, patent-pending feature that allows for onboard temperature calibrations with altitude correction for greater brewing accuracy. The brewer, also offers adjustable settings for presoak, brew time, and temperature.
Their new technology is the first of its kind to offer accurate temperature control at all altitudes in a home coffee brewer. It is also the first consumer brewer with a pre-soak capability that emulates manual pour-over systems. Once the Brazen is programmed with specified altitude, water temperature, and pre-soak settings, the brewer automatically uses modern electronics to store the system settings to an on-board memory and produce a cup of coffee.
The Brazen allows consumers to tailor the coffee experience with their own customized settings based on the variety and roast level of the coffee.  These options available have never been offered in a home brewer and emulate the coffee house experience for the perfect cup of coffee at home!
NEO by Manitowoc Ice
Manitowoc’s NEO™ is the first under-counter ice machine to offer operators feedback, vital performance, and operational information at a glance.  Universally recognizable display icons and buttons accommodate multiple different languages.  These icons are located on the front of the machine and are illuminated by long-life LED indicator lights.  Indicators include:  power, delay, cleaning, bin full, and service. The keypad placement is ideal for viewing and easy actuation – no bending required.
NEO™ offers up to 33 pounds more of ice production within the same footprint of their existing models over a 24-hour period.  Extra ice production helps operators cover spikes in demand throughout the day.  NEO™ outperforms in energy conservation too. All of the NEO™ air-cooled models meet or exceed ENERGY STAR V2.0 qualifications. That represents a 100 percent increase over Manitowoc’s existing under-counter offering.  With 10 percent less energy consumption and 22 percent less water usage, it adds up over time, which is money that can be put back into an owners’ business.
NEO™ means new, but not the kind of new that becomes old. It’s a new standard, a new class, a new approach, and a new way for you to think about ice. By providing new levels in performance, intelligence, and convenience, NEO™ offers an all-in-one solution to your under-counter ice cube needs.
Loring Smart Roast, Inc.-Flavor-Lock Roast Process™
By creating a tightly controlled atmosphere in the roast chamber for barometric pressure, temperature, and humidity, and by using advanced digital controls that can be read on the display, or remotely on iPads and smart phones, roastmasters now have greatly improved control of every roast, and can capture a roast profile that accurately repeats each time.
The data from the roast that is available through the computer control system allow roastmasters to make subtle adjustments to the roasting environment in real time. For example, it’s possible to increase or decrease the temperature within the roast chamber almost instantaneously by changing the burner in one percent increments. No other roaster gives you this level of fine control over the roasting environment, or the ability to fully develop the subtle flavors in your beans. People crave better coffees, and the superior flavor of coffee roasted in a Loring delivers the cleaner, brighter cup.
Loring Roasters offer the ease of local or remote communication for control of the roast and accessing reports. A roastmaster can enjoy the freedom to step away from the roaster yet stay in contact and control with 6-second updates in real-time and the ability to operate the roaster from a smartphone, computer, or iPad.
JavaSuits
JavaSuits are the newest, easiest, and most cost-effective way to extend the life of your coffee Air-Pots. The JavaSuit is the most simple way to extend the useful life of your Air-Pot.  JavaSuits will protect and enhance Air-Pots whether they are brand new or well used.  They can even make a ‘well used’ Air-Pot looking like new.
JavaSuits extend the usable lifetime of your equipment, reduce replacement costs, and add a bit of pizazz to your presentation. The JavaSuit is environmentally friendly and it can make an impression on guests while simultaneously saving the user money.
With JavaSuits, you can have a good-looking Air-Pot while saving money. It is a win-win!
Scolari Engineering S.p.A.- Coffee Roasting and Grinding Technology
This technology’s impact is a more overall consistent cup. They specialize in quality roasting and their roasters are generally bought by people interested in delivering a quality cup. Once the quality roast is identified, the roaster can do a fantastic job of repeating it batch after batch. Being the first commercial roaster to follow a computerized profile, they had decades of development in their software; which, not only cares for the roasting process, but they watched machine parameters to see if the roaster is working will or try to explain its fault.
While their roaster can roast manually, no one who has their controls ignores them, once they are made available. Much of the same can be said about their grinders. They can add variance in particle shape, as well as size and adjustment in the amount of ‘dust’ without interfering with the midpoint of the distribution.
The enjoyment of a great cup of coffee is a wonderful impact on society.  Consistency in the cup with no disappointments is a goal for all roasters.  While the coffee beans may be a commodity, adjusting for their differences lot-to-lot and taking out variances in the process are key steps in maintaining this consistency, while raising the overall quality level.
Not only does Scolari work hard to have the highest current technology, but opportunity exists to periodically upgrade the roasters, as their development is ongoing.
Bloomfield World Wide- E-MAX Brewing System
With a menu-driven, easy-to-read display, you can program and monitor any and all aspects of the brewing cycle including: Four volume or recipe settings; temperature control: E-Max maintains the water temperature within 1 degree; patented spray head design will bathe the coffee bed in a shower of hot water for the utmost in flavor; pre- infusion and Pulse brew; you can monitor total brew cycles, brew counts on a 7-day rotation; water volume processed: It alerts you when your water filters need to be changed; brew time, including drip out time, will also be shown.
You can save on power and prevent floods with this brewing system. Service technicians have found their E-Max brewer components are easily accessible and can be serviced or replaced in minutes. The unique solenoid valve combines the inlet water system and flow control, simplifying installation and service. Plus, the E-Max has self-diagnostic features that will shut down the brewer and immediately show a diagnostic message on the display to assist the technician to take quick corrective action.
The E-Max Test Program will turn on each of the valves and heating elements individually, as well as monitor the readings on the liquid level sensor, the temperature probe, lights, and keypad. This allows you to isolate and check key components, taking the guesswork out of service.
The Curtis Thermal FreshTrac™
The key to a well-executed coffee program is serving consistently hot and fresh coffee every time. Monitoring the holding time and amount of coffee in the dispenser is crucial to freshness and coffee. The Curtis Thermal FreshTrac™ is a simple, – active not passive – LCD visual system that communicates time and volume at a glance even from across the room. The system is activated the moment the coffee is brewed into a dispenser to keep successful coffee programs on track.
Thermal FreshTrac™ couldn’t be easier—even for the busiest operation.  Through high-tech sensors, the system is activated and volume measured the moment coffee starts flowing into the dispenser.  LCD volume bars eliminate guessing how much coffee is left.  A digital numerical timer counts up or down to show how long the brew has been on the burner.  Plus, an array of static and flashing green and red lights help servers track coffee freshness and volume at a glance.
The result is that operators can easily see when it’s time to brew new coffee, or more coffee, and keep customers happy and coming back again.
Technology is essential to making our day-to-day routines easier. It provides us with high quality software, instruments, and products that are key to running coffee operations smoothly and effectively.