Hi Jake.

There's the fire safety 18-24" clearance around the off side of the machine and maybe a little more room (depending on the size of the operator) to squeeze between the control panel and the wall.

On that basis, you could probably squeeze a 10kg into a large closet and make it work.

That would be a terrible idea for a myriad of reasons:

• Space that small will get hot with heat radiating off the roaster. If you're storing coffee in there with the machine, this will cause your coffee to age much more rapidly.
• Space that small will be a problem with airflow. The 10kg moves around 600CFM with the cooling fan on. Make up air isn't all that tough to figure out, but it's another environmental issue to consider.
• You need enough room to disconnect and move everything on a regular basis for cleaning and maintenance. That means vent lines, cooling tray, chaff collector, exhaust fan, etc.
• You need room for, at minimum, your daily production of coffee. That means green and roasted.
• You need room to package and stage roasted coffee.
• You need room for vital infrastructure like sealers, 3-compartment sink, bathroom, hand wash station, maybe a weigh-fill machine and most likely a grinder.
• You'll need room to GROW.

This last one is even more vitally important because building a smallish, more affordable space might seem the easy and cheap path until someone likes your coffee enough to ask for an additional 500 lbs a week.

To be clear, if you don't have cash flow and you've never done this before, I am NOT suggesting you go out and lease a 2500 square foot space to plop a 10kg roaster in. BUT, if you do have cashflow and your scaling to a 10kg, it is in no way wise to shoehorn a machine capable of producing 2000lbs a week into a space that can only support 200lbs per week.

Now that I've gotten all preachy... if I'm on a budget a 10kg roaster is ideally placed in a minimum 1000sf space with sufficient gas, electrical, and venting accessibility to support the machine. Better would be a 1500sf space with all of that and a dock and a drive in door. Best would be all of that with another 1500-2000sf bay next door that I can grab 2 years from now when I'm bursting at the seams.

Steve,

Thanks so much for your input. I greatly value it! I am reaching that point where I am going to need to upgrade, it just a matter of getting all my ducks in a row.

And sometimes we need someone to be preachy so we don't make bad decisions.