Meet the roasters
Vintage Coffee Roasters. Rebuilt by Hand
Extract Coffee is hand-roasted on vintage coffee roasters, rescued from scrap and lovingly brought back to life through a series of restorations by the Extract Coffee Roasters team.
Bertha
120kg | Probat | 1990's
Bertha is our 120kg Probat roaster and the heartbeat of our roastery today. But when we found her, she was a pile of parts. Decommissioned in a roastery in Bosnia.
This rebuild took four years to complete. We've transformed this machine into a cleaner, greener coffee roaster.
An afterburner eliminates VOCs from our emissions (meaning cleaner air for Bristol) and this machine now runs 60% more efficiently than when she was first built nearly 30 years ago.
THE STORY OF BERTHA'S RESCUE
Bertha, our 1990s Probat coffee roaster. Rebuilt by the team at Extract Coffee Roasters
Betty
60kg | Probat | 1955
Bertha's older sister. A 1955 vintage Probat roaster named Betty.
When we rescued Betty in 2010 she was in a bad way. After 18 months of hard graft, Betty's restoration was complete and set us on a path to continue rescuing, restoring and rebuilding these beautiful machines.
In 2020 we added an afterburner to clean up her emissions and made further modifications to further improve the consistency and efficiency of Betty's roasts.
We launched a new coffee, Betty Espresso in 2020 celebrating 10 years since Betty's restoration. The coffee launches each year on International Women's Day and champions female coffee growers around the globe.
Betty is now more than 65 years old, but ongoing restoration projects like these will see her stand the test of time (and outlive us all!)
Co-founder, Dave repairing Betty, our 1955 Probat coffee roaster
The Twins
15kg | Probat | 1990's
Our latest restoration project, two 15kg vintage Probat roasters, The Twins.
We're in the process of converting these from electric to gas, and are modifying each roaster for small batch-roasts of our most premium speciality coffees.
Co-founder, Dave working on the restoration of The Twins
James
6kg | Ozturk | 2000's
Our very first roaster, James started as a 10kg Ozturk. We've modified and restored this machine many times over the years, changing the roaster from convection to conduction and modifying the skin to make the roast more consistent. These changes mean his roasting capacity is now closer to 6kg.
Named after the little red engine in Thomas The Tank Engine, (before he got coated in Extract's signature black) James was a staple in our business for many years, roasting our delicious single-origin coffees.
James, our first roaster, once red, now black
The Prof
300g | an old paint gun | 2010
The Prof was our first test roaster. Built back in 2010 from an old paint gun, a popcorn machine and some reclaimed materials salvaged from old roasters. This was the roaster we used to test-roast new coffees
The Prof, our first test roaster, built from an old paint gun
