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Green and Roasted Coffee Bean Sorter
jbrux4
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Posted on 04/29/2020 12:48 PM
I saw this and though, "Pretty dang cool." I remember seeing something about a fruit sorter that can optically find "rejects" on a conveyor and then bat them out at a transfer point. I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if that could be done for coffee beans." Turns out, somebody's done it.

R/
Jared
 
JackH
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Posted on 04/29/2020 6:08 PM
I wonder if it can spot potato defect in beans.
---Jack

KKTO Roaster.
 
Mbb
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Posted on 04/30/2020 8:32 AM
I'll bite...

Who is mixing green and roasted beans together?
 
mtbizzle
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Posted on 04/30/2020 1:32 PM

Quote

Mbb wrote:

I'll bite...

Who is mixing green and roasted beans together?


In the video, it doesn't look like they're sorting green/roasted. Defect/no defect. They have another feature that sorts roasted coffee -- eg overroasted beans, quakers, taking them out. I'm guessing you were misinterpreting 'green/roasted coffee sorter' -- not at the same time!

Quote

I wonder if it can spot potato defect in beans.


I'm not an expert, but my expectation would be:

a system like this has the potential to identify/remove any defect that is visible and exhibits some characteristic visual profile. Speculating, but I would think (a) if the defect isn't clearly visible on all surfaces, a lot would be missed, (b) would run into issues if the defects were hard to distinguish from normal characteristics. Maybe it would be hard to detect some of the potato defect beans -- many have very minor physical defects, or a bore on one side only, right?

Though I have heard that potato defect beans will show up under UV. That would presumably be a very easy method for a machine to use for sorting Rwandan coffee. Or sorting at home!
Roast: Kaldi wide, SR800 + projects
Grind: Lab sweet, Bentwood, giota w/ MP burrs, Commandante
Pull: Decent, La Pavoni, Elektra Microcasa a Leva, Faemina anno 60, Kim Express
 
baldheadracing
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Posted on 05/02/2020 4:18 PM

Quote

JackH wrote:

I wonder if it can spot potato defect in beans.

Last I heard ... no. While a potato defect may show up in UV, unfortunately quite a few usable beans show up as well so it isn't practical.

As an aside, Illy pioneered optical sorting. National Geographic did a 45-minute documentary on Illy roasting factory a few years ago. There's a short segment in the video showing their optical sorting system about 23 minutes in.

 
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