Ambex Coffee Roasters & Grinders
Production drums, Clearwater, Florida, United States.
History
The firm was born of exile. In December 1992, the Haveric family arrived in Clearwater, Florida, having fled the war in Bosnia. They first opened a café, with few means. The firm's own account gives the turning point in one sentence: what they liked about the day was not the counter, it was the roaster in the back room. In 1994, the workshop took precedence over the café, and Ambex began building machines. The firm claims that this first machine is still running, in South Dakota. The business has stayed small and has passed to the second generation: Nedim, son of Amer Haveric and an engineer, works at his side today. It is Amer Haveric who answers the company telephone, and the firm makes a selling point of it. It makes a difference to the buyer: nobody stands between him and the man who built his machine. The company name, Ambex Coffee Roasters & Grinders, Inc., appears on the manufacturer's website. No official register could be consulted to say on what date it was filed.
What it makes
A single type of machine: the drum roaster, gas-fired, natural gas or propane. The drum is a horizontal rotating cylinder, heated from below. It transmits to the bean the heat of its metal as much as that of the air it stirs. The steel body is formed by boilermakers in Turkey, which the manufacturer presents as the home of this trade. Boilermaking is the work of shaping thick plate by rolling, bending and welding. Everything else comes from American suppliers: motors, gas train, wiring, controls and temperature probes. The gas train is the set of valves and safeties that bring the gas to the burner. Assembly is done in Clearwater. The workshop owns its own CNC milling machine and welding booth. It therefore machines on site the parts that no catalog sells, which matters above all for repairing an old machine. The house rule is that no machine leaves without having roasted a real batch, and not a mere rotation test. The controls record the bean temperature and the air temperature. They can be read from Artisan or Cropster over Modbus RTU on a USB port, with a serial driver to install. Modbus is an industrial protocol for dialogue between controllers, open and documented. That is why third-party software can read the machine without asking the manufacturer for anything.
The models
Nine models, all named YM followed by the capacity per batch in kilos. The workshop range runs from the YM-2 to the YM-15, with the YM-5 and the YM-10 in between. The production range covers the YM-30, the YM-60 and the YM-90. The YM-120 and the YM-240 close the line. Eight data sheets are published and give usable figures. The BTU per hour is the Anglo-Saxon unit of heat still used to size gas burners. The YM-2 roasts 2.2 kg and weighs 125 pounds, or 57 kg, for 20,000 BTU per hour, or 5.9 kW. The YM-5 roasts 5 kg and weighs 425 pounds, or 193 kg, for 50,000 BTU per hour, or 14.7 kW. The YM-10 weighs 595 pounds, or 270 kg, for 75,000 BTU per hour, or 22 kW. The YM-15 weighs 720 pounds, or 327 kg, for 100,000 BTU per hour. The YM-30 weighs 1,750 pounds, or 794 kg, for 180,000 BTU per hour. The YM-60 weighs 2,100 pounds, or 953 kg, for 330,000 BTU per hour. The YM-90 weighs 2,600 pounds, or 1,179 kg, for 380,000 BTU per hour. The YM-120 weighs 3,000 pounds, or 1,361 kg, for 450,000 BTU per hour, or 132 kW. The YM-240 is the only one without a data sheet: it is sold on quotation. The manufacturer announces for it batches of a quarter of a tonne, without saying which tonne. The YM-5 plugs into an ordinary outlet, at 120 V and 15 amps, cord and plug. The YM-2 draws only 4 amps, which stays within the limits of a household circuit. Ambex also sells used machines, taken back and refurbished in its workshop, with a one-year warranty. It does not repaint them, so that the buyer sees their real condition. The Artisan documentation covers only four models: YM-2, YM-5, YM-10 and YM-15.
What you gain
The drum is heavy for what it roasts: 26 kg of machine per kilo of coffee on the YM-2, 39 on the YM-5, 27 on the YM-10. This mass of metal stores heat and gives it back to the next charge. It is what makes credible the five batches per hour announced up to the YM-15, a twelve-minute cycle. The burner is generous too, at small sizes. The YM-5 has 10,000 BTU per hour per kilo of coffee, or nearly 3 kW per kilo. Such a high power per kilo leaves margin: the operator can restart a rise that is flattening out. Gas provides all the heat, so electricity serves only the motors and the controls. The installation stays light at small sizes: 4 amps on the YM-2, a simple cord on the YM-5, no three-phase before the YM-30. Finally, Modbus is an open protocol, and neither Artisan nor Cropster belongs to the manufacturer. Roasting data are therefore not prisoners of an in-house program.
What you lose
The metal that stabilizes the charge also delays correction. A cut in gas takes time to show on the probe, because the drum is still giving back the heat it took in. The drum speed control and the air extraction control are options, not standard equipment. On a standard machine, the only lever alive during the roast is therefore the gas. A roaster operator usually has three levers, gas, air and drum speed, and two are missing here. The convective share cannot be adjusted, yet it is what works the surface of the bean. The controls record the profile, but no replay or automation function is announced. Repeatability therefore rests entirely on the operator. The power per kilo collapses with size: 10,000 BTU per hour per kilo on the YM-5, 3,750 on the YM-120. The manufacturer also drops from five to four batches per hour from the YM-30 on, a fifteen-minute cycle. A big Ambex machine thus has less margin, per kilo of coffee, than a small one. The jump from the YM-60 to the YM-90 is the steepest: 50 percent more coffee for 15 percent more burner. Finally, no heating diagram is published, which rules out any part-by-part comparison with another manufacturer.