Coffee Roasting Operations Monitoring
Continuous T + RH monitoring across green-coffee storage, roasted-coffee aging, and roastery floor — with per-lot environmental records for SCA / Q Grader specialty coffee traceability.
Scope: storage + aging + facility, not real-time roast control
LoopString monitors and controls slow-process variables (storage T / RH, roastery ambient, post-roast aging environment). The real-time roast curve itself — drum temperature, gas pressure, exhaust fan during the 12–15 minute roast — needs faster control loops than Pi-based PID is the right tool for. For roast curve work, use Cropster / Artisan with the roaster's PLC. Use LoopString for everything around the roast.
The Problem
Green coffee degrades in poor storage
Green beans are hygroscopic — too much RH and they go off; too dry and they age fast. A muggy summer week can drop a $4,000 sack to a Q-grade you can no longer sell.
Roastery floor T/RH affects everything downstream
Roastery ambient T + RH drives drum start temperature, post-roast cooling rate, and grind/extraction QA. Tracking it manually leaves gaps; tracking it continuously turns into actionable patterns.
Roasted coffee aging is invisible without records
Roasted coffee degasses + ages in bags + bins; aroma compounds drift over weeks. Without environmental logs you cannot correlate batch QA scores to storage conditions.
SCA / Q Grader audit + traceability
Specialty operations chasing Q-grade scores or chasing SCA certifications increasingly include environmental traceability for green-storage and roasted-aging. Paper logs do not survive an audit.
How LoopString Solves It
Green-storage + roasted-storage climate control
On-Pi PID + threshold logic drives dehumidifier + AC + heater in green storage rooms to hold 50–60% RH at 15–20 °C. Roasted-coffee storage runs cooler + drier.
Roastery-floor dashboard with sparklines
See green storage, roasted storage, and roastery floor T/RH on one screen. Per-batch overlay of roastery ambient at the time of roast — useful when troubleshooting QA scores.
Threshold alerts on storage windows
Configure narrow alert windows on green-storage RH + temperature. Anomaly detection on baseline drift catches dehumidifier failure or cooling-unit degradation weeks before product is hit.
Per-lot environmental traceability
Export PDF reports per green-coffee lot covering its storage window: T, RH, and date range. Useful for SCA traceability claims and for Q Grader documentation.
Built for these coffee operators
Specialty coffee roasters
Green storage room + roasted-coffee aging room + roastery floor ambient monitoring with per-lot environmental records.
Multi-roastery operations
Distributed roastery network with central dashboard + RBAC for facility managers; aggregate environmental records across roasteries.
Green coffee importers + warehouses
Bulk green-coffee warehouses (jute / GrainPro / vacuum) need continuous T + RH monitoring across the storage floor; pair with /use-cases/cold-storage for chilled green storage.
Coffee QA + research labs
Cupping / QA labs with strict ambient T + RH windows for repeatable sensory work; pair with /use-cases/lab for the lab-bench instrumentation.
Cafés + coffee bars (storage room)
On-premise storage rooms for retail bag inventory — RH + temp affect freshness perception over the customer's pour.
Coffee equipment R&D + grinder calibration
Grinder + brewer calibration depends on ambient — track it so calibration logs can be normalised across seasons.
Hardware You'll Use
SHT31
Combined T + RH for storage rooms + roastery floor
I²CDS18B20
Spot temperature probes (bag-level, bin-level)
1-WireRelay module
Dehumidifier + AC + heater control in storage rooms
GPIOCO₂ sensor (optional)
CO₂ off-gassing tracking for freshly roasted bins
UART
Ready to log every degree the green sees?
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