I've recently started roasting my own coffee at home, starting with
green beans. Since I really enjoy the drink, it seemed to be a natural
progression for a homebrewer. It's easy to do, and the results are
quite spectacular even with rudementary equipment. In less than a month
I had learned quite a bit and was enjoying precisely the coffee roast I wanted. And I produce a slightly different
roast for my wife who likes it a bit darker than I do.
There are a number of ways to roast coffee at home. Most people use a
hot air corn popper, and we'll get to that momentarily. But first
we'll describe how to use a skillet on the stovetop to roast your
green beans. It's not the most consistent method but it's easy and
produces good results, and can give you an idea of what kind of
results you can expect, without purchasing any special equipment. You
simply pre-heat the skillet on about 3/4 heat, put in enough green
beans to just cover the bottom of the skillet, and then keep the
skillet moving - like when making popcorn - until it's done. A fair
amount of smoke will be produced as the chaff - like the skins on
peanuts - burns off, so make sure you either turn on the range hood
exhaust, or open lots of windows.
As coffee roasts, it goes through two stages known as "first pop" and
"second pop", as the beans dry out. First pop sounds a lot like
popcorn popping, while second pop sounds more like rice krispies
crackling, though much more intense. Depending upon the roasting
method, the beans, and ambient conditions, there may or may not be a
minute or two of relative silence between first and second pop. I
found that when roasting indoors in a hot air corn popper there was a
good two minutes of relative silence between first and second pop.
Using the same popper outdoors in a roasting box, first pop
transitioned right into second pop with no silence in between.
People who prefer a very light roast will stop the process somewhere
around first pop. Those who want a medium roast will stop between
first and second pop, or just into second pop. Stopping the roast well
into or even beyond second pop will produce a dark roast. When you
have reached the desired level of roast, you simply turn off the heat
and dump the beans into a colander and swish them about to cool them
as quickly as possible. If you do not cool them quickly, the roast
will continue to develop to a level beyond what you had intended. Then
you let the beans rest in an open container for 12 to 24 hours before
using them.
Any easier and more consistant method than the skillet is to use a hot
air corn popper, which you can get for 2 bucks at your local Salvation
Army Thrift Store or other 2nd hand store. There are 2 basic kinds of
poppers, and only 1 will work (the other may catch fire!). When you
look down into the metal bowl in the popper, you'll either see holes
in the bottom of the bowl for the hot air to come up through, or
you'll see louvres in the sides of the bowl. You want the louvres, not
the holes.
When roasting with a popper, basically you do this :
put beans in - fill to the line a bit above the louvres
turn popper on
time how long it's in
turn popper off
put beans into colander and move about to cool off
let them rest 12-24 hours in an open container before using.
Now, because this can cause a lot of smoke, you don't likely want to
do it indoors unless you have a range hood exhaust, which I do not.
And doing it outdoors when it is cold out does not work because the
popper won't get hot enough. Unless you trick it :-). This article on
my site gives you some details on what to do (and not to do) to roast
with an air popper in a cold shed.
Basically you put the popper into a box - I use a letter sized
cardboard filing box - and cover the whole thing loosely with alu foil leaving
an opening on the opposite side from where the popper vents. With this
I can roast in the shed at -10C no problems at all since the heated
air exhausted stays in the box and gets sucked back in the bottom
intake.
Every popper will have a different timing under different conditions.
Right now I'm using a "Popcorn Pumper" which you can see on my page
above. The "West Bend Poppery II" is also very popular. I have a few
of those too but have not tried them yet. Both of these are likely the
2 most well documented poppers on the internet. On my popcorn pumper I
get a very dark city roast at about 8 minutes with a cool popper.
About 6.5 minutes on the 2nd batch with the popper preheated. BUt I've
come to like lighter roasts as you get more bean flavour vs just plain
charcoal.
But I don't really go by time anymore. It's a good way to start out
but now I go by sound and smell. Mainly sound. I use the sounds of
first and second pop to tell me when it's done. I like a good medium
roast now which is just at the beginning of 2nd pop. My wife prefers
it when I go 30 to 45 seconds into 2nd pop for a darker roast.
I've been buying up poppers for 2 bucks each. I have 2 of the popcorn
pumpers, and I think 3 or 4 of the Poppery II, as well as a Kenmore or
something like that. At some point I would like to try doing some
popper modifications on one of them. Like for example convert one to
have separate heat and fan controls. Some people also have a 2nd
popper with the heating coil removed for cooling the beans.
Considering you can get a popper at your local thrift store for 2
bucks, you can do some experimenting without worrying abot breaking
the bank.
Oh, and you need beans! Check out our links section for that.
The beauty of home-roasting is that green beans are less than half the
price of gourmet coffee. And green beans keep practically forever so
you don't have to worry about having a lot on hand. Roasted beans
start to deteriorate after a week or two. And of course you get to
enjoy precisely the roast you want. 30 seconds in the roaster can make
a pretty big difference in the final product.
