Last year marked the beginning of a new age in coffee roasting with the release of DiFluid Omni. Never before had hobbyists, brewer’s cup champions, and small businesses had such easy access to precision roast level and particle analysis equipment. This year, DiFluid went a step further with their latest tool, Omix.
Roasting coffee involves as many, if not more variables than brewing coffee, with a single small change making a significant difference in the end result. Omix measures every single one of these variables, including current air temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure, while testing the density, moisture content, and even water activity of both coffee cherries and unroasted green coffee beans. Water activity has previously been a struggle for roasters because it requires large, expensive laboratory equipment. Handheld meters exist, but they come with a significant sacrifice in precision, and both options take up to seven minutes to test a single sample. Omix utilizes the chilled-mirror-dew-point method to test water activity, a similar concept to measuring the buildup of fog on the bathroom mirror during a shower, which reduces the time to get a precise reading down to less than 30 seconds.
That’s not all. DiFluid has developed a clever new method of calculating estimated density which results in a measurement that is significantly closer to the true density of the beans, as opposed to the current industry standard of measuring bulk density. By utilizing 2-dimensional imaging technology, Omix determines the gap rate between beans, establishes a data model, then uses the displacement method to calculate density. The results are much closer to the actual density than the traditional bulk density method, allowing for higher precision during the roasting process.
Not only does Omix collect this data and display it on its sleek touch screen display in an intuitive, easy to understand manner, but it also integrates seamlessly with DiFluid Café, the companion app, where data from all DiFluid analysis tools can be stored, manipulated, exported, and shared. In the near future, the data collected will be used to calculate roast profiles and adjust recipes based on the real time metrics of the to-be-roasted beans, allowing for more precise control.
Equipping roasters with this data will bring huge changes to both the roasting industry and to home roasters. Omix will drastically improve quality control and consistency, predictive maintenance, product development and innovation, while helping with environmental and sustainability considerations, regulatory compliance and documentation, and even determining the best roasting profile. As this technology reaches more people, the language and best practices will evolve, enhancing communication and education throughout the industry.
Omix will be available in two versions. Omix Basic, which includes all the features mentioned above, and Omix Plus, which adds roast level analysis tools as well, allowing roasters to quantify the entire roasting process. Omix Plus measures roast level according to the Agtron scale as well as any other scale users may be familiar with, plus a percentage based distribution across the entire whole bean or ground coffee sample. This data enables roasters to understand how evenly roasted their beans are, and gain greater insight into what variables they should change during the next roast.
By far however, the biggest change to the industry is in the drastic price reduction of this technology. This will not only give home roasters and small businesses access to new data, but will also significantly improve the ability of large roasters to maintain quality between roasting facilities without having to purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of large, cumbersome equipment for every roasting location.
The combination of research grade measuring tools and the community aspect of DiFluid Café, will bring a revolution in the sharing of coffee processing workflows and techniques, bringing unprecedented innovation to the world of coffee.
This press release was provided to Sprudge for Sprudge Press Releases. Interested in submitting a press release? Get in touch!
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Zac Cadwalader
May 23, 2024
