Carmomaq

History

The firm says it was born in 1992 in Espírito Santo do Pinhal, in the state of São Paulo. The Brazilian federal register, for its part, opens the company on October 23, 2001. The two dates can coexist, a family workshop often preceding its registration, but no document links them. The founder is known by the nickname Zé do Carmo, and it is this nickname that gave the company its name. Its registered corporate name still says today “peças e máquinas agrícolas,” that is, agricultural parts and machinery. The firm therefore started from farm equipment, and it nowhere tells how it went from there to the roaster. What it does say is that the taste for roasting comes from the founder and has stayed in the family. His three sons appear in the register today, Leandro Cesar, Lucas Tadeu and Marcus Vinicius do Carmo. Only Marcus is listed there as manager, the other two as partners. The factory occupies the Distrito Industrial II of the same city. The range is called Linha ATTO, after the suffix shared by its nine lines, Laboratto, Stratto, Stratto Lab, Speciatto, Caloratto, Superatto, Macinatto, Minoratto, Exatto. It is sold in more than twenty-five countries, on every continent. Its interest, for anyone comparing manufacturers, lies in its breadth. A single catalog covers the three scales of the trade: the 120-gram sample, the shop of a few kilos, the industrial line of several hundred kilos per batch.

What it makes

Carmomaq makes drum roasters, and it makes them in every size. The register confirms that it is indeed a manufacturer. Its main activity there is the manufacture of machinery, and one of its declared activities is metal cutting and bending. It therefore works its own sheet metal, which sets it apart from an assembler or a reseller. The principle it puts forward is neither direct flame nor pure indirect heating. On the Caloratto as on the Speciatto, it announces a device that makes it possible to alternate during roasting between conduction and convection. Conduction is the heat transmitted by contact of the bean against the metal of the drum. Convection is the heat carried by the hot air that passes through the charge. Adjusting the share of each amounts to adjusting what dries the bean and what roasts it. The English version of the site gives the Caloratto a micro-flame burner. A burner that holds a very small flame goes low in power without going out, which matters on a partial charge. The so-called traditional line, older, keeps a “blindado” cylinder, shielded, that is, kept away from the flame. Two models escape gas: the Stratto and the Stratto Lab heat by electric resistances, 3,000 watts. The industrial Superatto incinerates its own fumes and its chaff, the chaff being the thin skin that comes off the bean during roasting. The manufacturer announces a modulating or conventional burner there depending on the version. The ecological furnace, sold separately, grafts onto a conventional roaster and rises to 1,300 degrees.

The models

Sample roasters: the Laboratto, 120 g per drum, in versions with 2, 4 or 6 drums, propane gas, ten minutes of roasting, 1 HP or about 0.75 kilowatt. Each drum there has its own gas setting and its own airflow, and the whole unit sends its chaff out through a cyclone. The Stratto Lab, 150 to 250 g, electric, 3,000 W, 4 to 12 minutes, compatible with Artisan and Cropster. A so-called traditional sample roaster, with 1, 2, 3 or 6 cylinders, whose capacity is not published. Small runs: the Stratto, 300 g to 1 kg, 100% electric, 3,000 W, 12 to 18 minutes; the Speciatto, 0.5 to 2 kg, natural gas or propane, 12 to 18 minutes, 1 HP. Production: the Caloratto, 5, 10, 15, 30 and 60 kg per batch, natural gas or propane, 12 to 18 minutes, 3 to 4 HP. It comes with a choice of a button panel or a touch panel that adjusts temperature, air and drum rotation. The Caloratto Pro takes the same capacities with a 15.6-inch capacitive screen. Industrial: the Superatto, 12 to 20 minutes of roasting, 18 to 50 HP. The Portuguese page gives it in 60, 120 and 240 kg per batch, the English page adds 30 and 480 kg. The announced fuels also differ from one language of the site to the other. To this is added a traditional roaster of 4 and 10 kg, whose complete cycle, charge, roasting and cooling, takes thirty minutes. Around the roasters come the Macinatto, a grinding and packaging set given for 180 kg/h, the Minoratto doser and the Exatto doser, 120 kg/h each. There are also disc, hammer and tasting grinders, the ecological furnace and the silos. Handling is done by bucket elevators or by the STTC tubular conveyor, given for 1,000 to 1,500 kg/h.

What you gain

The adjustment between conduction and convection changes what can be done with the same machine. One dries with air, finishes by contact, without changing drum. The micro-flame burner goes very low in power, so a partial charge does not require shutting off then relighting. The Laboratto gives six profiles on a single sample in ten minutes. Each drum having its own gas and air, the six roasts are variants and not six repetitions. This is exactly what a sensory analysis asks for, where deliberately different roasts are compared. The Stratto, for its part, runs on 3,000 watts of resistances and installs where there is no gas supply. The ecological furnace, finally, grafts onto a machine already in place: treating its fumes does not require changing roaster.

What you lose

The Laboratto remains a sample roaster. At 120 grams, the ratio of surface to mass is enormous and the air does almost all the work. At 60 kilos, it is the metal of the drum. The profile therefore does not transpose as is from one scale to another. The Stratto's resistances cap at 3,000 watts, or 3 watts per gram on a load of one kilo. A heavy charge lengthens the drying, and the ramp lost is not recovered afterward. The ecological furnace rises to 1,300 degrees, and this heat is paid for in fuel. The manufacturer publishes neither its consumption nor the extra cost. The catalog, finally, publishes neither drum diameter, nor rotation speed, nor burner power, nor mass. Without these figures, two machines of the same announced capacity cannot be compared.