Atilla Torradores Inteligentes

History

The firm comes out of a lathe operator's workshop, not a design office. Tomaz Emerick is a metal turner, and he learned about heat in the steel industry. In the mid-1990s, around Manhuaçu, in the Zona da Mata of Minas Gerais, he built small roasters to help out neighboring coffee growers. His wife, Marlene Nunes, is the daughter of producers, and the couple already grew coffee. The first machines came out through successive trial and error. The moment did the rest: the specialty coffee movement was starting in Brazil, roasteries were opening everywhere, and producers were beginning to judge their own beans. The couple loaded the roasters into the car and sold them by hand. Inflation and the change of currency made those years uncertain. The second generation arrived by accident. Mateus, the son, was studying mechanical engineering at UFMG when a strike interrupted classes. He came home to learn the trade from his father, and he brought computer-aided drawing. The factory left Manhuaçu for Belo Horizonte in 2018. The third generation already works there. The firm long dated its founding to 1995, in its pages as in its copyright notice. Its current site places it in 1989, at the first machine built for a friend.

What it makes

A single trade since the beginning: the gas-fired production drum roaster. The fuel is LPG, liquefied petroleum gas, or natural gas on a dedicated line of at least 28 mbar. The burner is called a micro-flame burner: combustion is spread over a multitude of small orifices instead of a single flame. A flame divided this way stays stable very low in its power range, so the heating can be finely adjusted. A 2020 product sheet attributes this burner to a German supplier, without naming it. The burner occupies a separate gas chamber, which is lit through a door on the manual machines. The drum carries inner screws that stir the bean, and a tempered-glass viewport shows the bean and the flame. Since 2021, control relies on ABB ACS380 frequency drives and an ABB CP607 interface. A frequency drive adjusts the speed of a motor by changing the frequency of the current that feeds it. The roasting algorithm is written in the interface, which controls the airflow, the drum speed and the flame intensity. The firm says it assembles nothing: it designs and machines every key part itself, in Belo Horizonte. The cooler is separate, with its own turbine, which makes it possible to start a batch while the previous one is cooling.

The models

Five capacities per batch: 2, 5, 10, 15 and 30 kg. Usable loads run from 0.2 to 2 kg on the smallest, from 3 to 30 kg on the largest. The announced throughputs follow: about 10, 25, 50, 75 and 130 kg per hour. The published floor areas range from 2 to 12 m². Two lines share these capacities. The Huno, launched in 2022, is autonomous: it records the curve on its touchscreen, preheats and shuts down by itself. The Novo Standard requires a laptop and software, keeps a fixed drum speed, and adjusts the flame by hand, with a pressure gauge in mbar. The manufacturer announces about 2.5 kg of LPG per hour at a medium roast, and a manufacturing lead time of sixty to ninety days. The 2020 sheets carried other line names: Standard, Gold and Gold Plus. They give precise weights: 180 kg for the 2 kg, 320 kg for the 10 kg, 500 kg for the 30 kg. The 10 kg is given there as 1.9 m high, 1.2 kW, four motors, 220 V, and fifteen minutes for a medium roast. A 60 kg model existed until the end of the 2010s, then vanished from the catalog. In 2001, the range was called TM-TC/22, TM-TC/45 and TM-TC/135, for 15, 30 and 60 kg. Production today runs around a hundred machines a year.

What you gain

The published range of the burner goes from 11,000 to 200,000 BTU per hour, a ratio of 1 to 18. A burner that holds the flame this low runs continuously, without lighting and extinguishing. Airflow and drum speed have been variable since 2008, and drive-controlled since 2021. Both convection levers can therefore be adjusted during the roast, without touching the gas. The mass does the rest: 320 kg of machine for 10 kg of coffee. That makes 32 kg of metal per kilo charged, which hold the charge temperature between batches.

What you lose

The mass-to-capacity ratio collapses with size. There are 90 kg of machine per kilo of coffee on the 2 kg, 32 on the 10 kg, 17 on the 30 kg. The large machine therefore stores less heat per kilo charged, and depends more on the burner. LPG imposes its limit: the firm recommends a P45 cylinder, because a small cylinder cools as it evaporates and loses its pressure. The Gold manual cuts the flame at 250 °C, which caps the preheating. The electronics, the software and the parts come only from Atilla. The range stops at 30 kg.