At Ember Coffee Co., our goal has always been clarity in the cup and consistency in the craft. Based in Central Minnesota, we're a local coffee roaster committed to roasting coffee with heart, intention, and increasing precision.

Our Café and Roastery operate with one guiding principle: do better, every batch.

For the first few years, that meant relying on trust, paper logs, and what we could hold in our heads and our hands. But as we grew—adding team members, expanding our wholesale relationships, and increasing our volume—it became clear that our roasting operation needed structure. We needed a system to help us document what we were doing, share knowledge, and scale with integrity.

That's when we chose Cropster.

This blog post isn't a sales pitch. It's a transparent look at how we got here, what led us to adopt Cropster, and what it's unlocked for us as a growing Minnesota coffee roaster using air roasting technology.

A Roastery at a Crossroads

We started with a solid foundation: a clear vision for how we wanted to roast, a commitment to intentional sourcing, and a focus on delivering a consistent product. But even with all that, the tools we were using started to show their limitations.

We were:

• Logging roasts manually or in disconnected documents
• Losing time trying to confirm roast consistency or troubleshoot batch issues
• Keeping track of green coffee inventory through spreadsheets
• Training new roasters through observation and repetition, without shared data

All of this added up to a lot of behind-the-scenes labor that wasn't sustainable as volume increased.

"We needed a better way to track what we were doing. We needed to get roast profiles locked in and make sure we were being consistent across the team." — Matt Berry

Why Cropster Made Sense for Ember

What made Cropster feel like the right choice wasn't just the feature set—it was that it adapted to what we were already doing. It didn't force us to change our roasting style. It let us build structure around it.

As an air roasting operation, we already think in terms of heat transfer, airspeed, and timing. Cropster helped translate those variables into language we could all share across the team, with real-time data and historical tracking.

"It's been really good just from a documentation standpoint, to be able to go back and reference previous roasts. Especially when we're training new roasters, and we're bringing them into the fold, it's really nice to say, 'Here's a really solid roast of this coffee. Let's take a look at it, let's study it.'" — Matt Berry

Real Benefits We've Experienced

1. Better Training for a Growing Team

Training is critical. At Ember, we want every roaster to understand the "why" behind what they're doing—not just follow instructions.

Before Cropster, training meant watching Matt roast and taking notes. Now, we can walk new team members through a previous profile, explain the thinking behind key stages, and let them interact with data—not just machinery.

"Our team's at a point now where other people are roasting. And I need to make sure they can look at previous roasts and ask: 'Okay, what's different about this roast than that roast?' And Cropster makes that really easy." — Matt Berry

2. Repeatability, Not Guesswork

Every roast tells a story—and with Cropster, we can read it back.

When a customer raves about a specific batch or a wholesale client wants to reorder the same profile, we can go back and match the roast exactly. The variables are right there: development time, temperature curves, turning points, and notes.

This matters especially in air roasting, where roast dynamics move fast. Having live curve tracking gives us immediate feedback when something's off—before it gets into the cooling tray.

3. Inventory Visibility

Before Cropster, green inventory tracking was a manual task. Now, it's built into our daily rhythm.

We know:

• How much green we have in real time
• How much we'll need for upcoming orders
• When to reorder to avoid shortages

This reduces stress during peak seasons and makes our sourcing more strategic.

"I can just go into Cropster and see how much of that natural Ethiopia we've got left. It's right there, live." — Matt Berry

4. Tighter Communication

With roasting, café operations, e-commerce, and wholesale all running in parallel, we needed a central source of truth.

Cropster helped us build a system that connects:

• Production scheduling
• Roast logging
• Inventory forecasting
• Team communication

This lets us spend less time rechecking details and more time roasting great coffee.

Cropster + Air Roasting = Compatibility

For those wondering: yes, Cropster works beautifully with air roasting, and it’s a game-changer for precision-driven roasting methods. Our roasting style relies heavily on precise airflow and fast heat transfer to achieve consistent and high-quality results. Cropster's real-time graphing and logging features make it easy to track every detail of the roast, allowing us to make on-the-fly adjustments or replicate a roast with exact precision. The software doesn’t just accommodate air roasting—it actively supports it with powerful tools like live temperature monitoring, detailed curve comparisons, and roast replay, giving us unparalleled control over the process.

Whether you're using a fluid bed or hot-air roasting system, Cropster can help elevate your workflow. It enhances the clarity and control we value, making it easier to fine-tune profiles and experiment with different variables to get the perfect roast. If you’ve been unsure whether Cropster is the right fit for air roasting, we’ve found it to be an essential tool that empowers us to push the boundaries of what’s possible with this style of roasting.

Advice to Other Roasters

When we started growing as a local coffee roaster—especially one using air roasting—we learned a few key lessons along the way.

First, it’s important to start small but track everything early on. You don’t need to activate every tool or feature right away. Begin with the basics like roast logging and inventory tracking, and let your system grow naturally alongside your business.

We also found that building a shared language was crucial. Tools like Cropster give your team a common vocabulary for training, quality control, and planning. Embracing this shared language from the beginning made everything run more smoothly.

Finally, integrating tools into your daily workflow is essential. Cropster really shines when it becomes second nature. From setting up roast schedules to using it during roasting sessions and reviewing afterward, the more we relied on it, the more valuable it became to our process.

These lessons helped us streamline our operations and focus on what matters most—crafting great coffee.

Looking Ahead

Implementing Cropster didn't change what makes Ember unique—it supported it.

As a Central Minnesota coffee roaster committed to craft and community, we believe technology should serve the people behind the process. That's what Cropster has done for us. It's become a tool that helps us focus less on the variables—and more on the coffee itself.

We're still learning. We're still adapting. But thanks to tools like Cropster, we're doing it with more clarity, more consistency, and more confidence in every cup.

Want to hear more about how we use Cropster day-to-day?
Have questions about air roasting or managing a growing roasting team?
Drop a comment, share this with a fellow Minnesota coffee roaster, or find us on Instagram @embercoffeeco.

Let's keep raising the bar—one well-documented roast at a time.