Sep. 26—CHEYENNE — Scott Gondzar never liked the "frankenroaster." The makeshift contraption is the first thing he sees when he walks in to work every morning at Snowy Elk Coffee Co., 6002 U.S. Highway 30.

The "frankenroaster" is a modified gas grill. Propped open, a crankable metal coffee roast occupies the majority of the grill's capacity, like a spit over a fire. These days, the "frankenroaster" is long gone.

Last week, Gondzar set up a computer program to show the Wyoming Tribune Eagle how to roast a bucket of coffee to his standards. He then stopped to pull out his phone and play a video that shows just how different the process was as recently as 2019.

The video shows him standing in sub-freezing temperatures, late at night, cranking the handle of the roaster until the beans were ready to be quickly cooled and packaged for the following morning's order fulfillment. "This is me out here roasting in a snowstorm in April," he says in the video.

He is now out of the cold, and things have heated up for Snowy Elk. People across Wyoming and in all states in the continental U.S. are buying the coffee.

In partnership with his wife, Julie Gondzar, the two worked their way up from roasting, packaging and selling the coffee from their backyard to acquiring a food trailer and finally an industrial coffee roaster. They use the roaster in their current location to churn out 25 pounds of coffee beans at a time.

That's about 85% of the machine's capacity — the optimal range for roasting as many beans as possible without sacrificing quality. Their business is classified as a small-batch roastery, which Scott said means they're roasting under 1,000 pounds of coffee per pallet.

Scott graduated from Colorado State University with a major in microbiology, and having done years of research in organic chemistry and biochemistry. This is an advantage in the process of turning pounds of green, uncooked coffee beans into aromatic delights.

Not only did he start out by learning how to roast coffee in a pan, he wrote down the data, studied the cracking points — when coffee goes from being light to medium to dark roast — and now understands the chemical makeup of a coffee bean during roast to where he can manipulate it to his liking.

"Now (I'm learning) in a different way. It's this constant game of, 'How do I make more without reducing quality?'" he said. "I think that's the general idea. How do you do it faster? How do I roast this? Because every roaster has a sweet spot."

Finding that sweet spot always comes as a surprise, and experimenting with different beans and roast strategies to reveal flavor profiles is one of the most exciting aspects of the job for Scott.

Their house blend, "Basecamp," is a medium roast with hints of what the Gondzars identified as the scent of sweet blueberry pie. Other times, a bean will reveal the scent of citrus — or if roasted too long, the bean's cellular matrix breaks down, producing too many acids.

"You can go down that rabbit hole," Julie Gondzar said, explaining the process following the roast cycle. "Once the coffee is roasted exactly the way you want it, you have to cool it down very fast. We have infrared temperature sensors, we monitor everything.

"When it's cooled off, it comes out into our bins, and we bag it."

Eight employees, including the Gondzars, make up the workforce, half of whom work in front-office operations with Julie. September begins their busy season, and they just ordered 21,000 12-ounce bags to last them this stretch.

They sell to local businesses, like Rail Yard, which exclusively brews with their products.

"We've been around for five years now. We really want Cheyenne to have a sense of pride," Julie said. "We want people to be proud that Snowy Elk Coffee is here as Cheyenne's only coffee roastery."

Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.

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