Are there any home coffee roasters here? I just started getting into this a few months ago and it's a fun and rewarding hobby,, not to mention the best tasting coffee you ever had!!


Ken

Never tried it Ken. But if you have an extra cup....... :)

Ed

Never tried it, but it does sound like fun. I went through a 'gourmet coffee' phase, grinding my own carefully researched and purchased beans, preparing in a french press, etc. It was fun and delicious, but nowdays I just make Folger's half-caff in a Mr. Coffee.

I don't think I'll ever go back to Folgers. Home roasted is absolutely the best tasting coffee I've ever had, no bitterness at all. I've always got an extra cup Ed, come on over :)


Ken

This coffee drinking it'll never catch on, can't you people see the light !

What exactly is the process for roasting beans? Just throw them in the oven...or is it more involved?

I have a wine tasting hobby...has the opposite effect come morning that coffee does! :D

I agree the good stuff tastes much better. But realize you're talking to a guy that doesn't eat anything that isn't microwavable, sandwichable, or in a bag :)

The grinder was just too noisy and required too many of my CPU cycles for that early in the morning. And the press required actually washing dishes (ick!)

The secret to truly enjoying Folgers is getting a really good crust builtup in your cup. This serves to absorb much of the bitterness, and also keeps it hot longer.

That's quite an offer Ken. Especially when I'm probably not too far from you. :D

Chris,
I tried iced tea, and I like it. Why don't you try iced coffee? :)

Ed

It is a little more involved than throwing the beans in the oven. Some people convert popcorn poppers into roasters, however, that isnt really recommended. I bought a unit specifically for roasting coffee. It'll roast 4 ounces of green beans in about 7 to 13 minutes depending on your tastes. That might sound like a small amount, but it isn't recommened to roast coffee you won't brew in 7 days, after that it actually starts to spoil, and yes that means the big ole cans in your cupboards are spoiling as we speak :( Once you try a cup of home roasted next to onr made froma can, you'll wonder how you could drink it before. As far as cleanup of the roaster, it's a snap, just brush out the chaff from the collector and wipe the roaster out with a paper towel. The roaster is a little noisy and it does produce a small amount of smoke. I roast it with the range hood fan on and that pretty well takes care of the smoke. The first time all the smoke alarms came screeching to life.

Ken

That does not sound too hard...it's probably a lot cheaper than buying the coffee beans preroasted? I feel bad...I have one of those big cans in the cupboard. I don't see how it could spoil though...it's bad from first to last drop!

Ed - You have not had iced tea until you have been in the south! "Sweet tea" as we like to call it...hope your not diabetic though, as the sugar level is about 500% of the daily recommended value! ( I hate the stuff :D )

I love good coffee, but couldn't imagine myself taking the time to actually roast the beans. Sounds interesting, though, and I'll bet the aroma is to die for.

Here where I am now, good coffee is hard to come by. I think that's what I miss most about living in the Pacific Northwest - great coffee on almost every street corner!

And Chris - one of my favorite places when I lived in Portland was called the British Tea Garden. Came complete with an entire staff that sported lovely British accents so I would guess it's authentic. I also love good tea... :)

Originally posted by G. Couch
Ed - You have not had iced tea until you have been in the south! "Sweet tea" as we like to call it...hope your not diabetic though, as the sugar level is about 500% of the daily recommended value! ( I hate the stuff :D )

Oh, I've been in the south quite a few times. I like my tea sweetened, but not like that. :(

Ed

LOL....

I went to lunch with my mom today. I ordered "Sweet Tea"

Still just a good ol' southern girl, I guess...

I like gourmet coffee, but I must admit that I am a tea drinker (hot & cold). Coffee in the morning, a nice cup of tea in the afternoon, and in the winter hot coco before bed. Now that’s a caffeinated day! However, nothing beats a great tea room. One of my favorites is in Canada by Niagara Falls. There is a little town there called Niagara on the Lake and it's a simply beautiful town bursting with landscaping. Beautiful parks, gardens and hanging baskets overflowing with flowers. I had a lovely afternoon tea at the Prince of Wales Inn...full silver tea service...three tiers of sandwiches and little cakes and a whole menu of teas to choose from. Yummy!

Oh, I am gonna have to look for that place, T. I'm planning on taking my first trip ever to Niagra Falls soon... Now I have even more to look forward to!

Ken,

We roast our own coffee. It is truely better than anything you can buy, if only because you get just the roast you want.

Unlike you I didn't get any fancy equipment, just use the oven. I can roast enough on a cookie sheet for about a week and a half. It is quite smoky. I understand the roasters produce less smoke.

It is actually a lot cheaper too. I work near Emeryville which is where most of the South American beans come in to the West Coast. I found a wholesale distrubutor who would sell bags to anyone. You just had to buy the whole bag. If that doesn't sound bad keep in mind that a bag of coffee is 120-150 lbs. Still I paid about 1/8 of the store price for the Columbian Supremo.

Roasting in the oven is pretty easy, spread them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put it in a hot (475) oven. After a while they start to pop, like popcorn, but they don't expand as much. There is a second pop that sounds a little different from the first, and that means they are almost ready. At that point I go by color and oil on the surface of the bean.

In the oven you don't get a perfectly evenly roasted batch. Around the outside of the pan the beans are (for my favorite roast) dark and oily, while the middle is chocolate brown, with no surface oil. I think having the variation adds to the complexity of the taste, which I enjoy.

Jak:

The smell is actually terrible while they are roasting. You know that burnt bitter flavor in a really dark French or Viennese roast coffee? That is the smell of roasting coffee. The beans don't take on that wonderful smell we all associate with coffee until they have absorbed some CO2 from the air, which takes several hours. In fact if you brew coffee right after roasting it tastes awful.

Ken, is this any different with the dedicated roasters like you use. I was thinking if there is more air flow in those, it might not take as long for the beans to mellow?

--tks

I think I'm going to order one of these....

http://www.pimprig.com/images/reviews/caffeine-img047.jpg

Margaret:cool: :cool:

From the descriptions here, I'm thinking that perhaps the coffee you get from home-roasting is similar to the coffee I had in Spain. I'll never forget how strong the coffee was, but there was absolutely no bitterness! I tried and tried to recreate it at home, but had no luck. :(

Unfortunately, now, I can't drink coffee at all. :bawling: So, my beverage of choice these days is green tea.

Jeanie

Tim_S , the machine I bought is a Caffe Rosto, one of the reasons dedicated roasting machines are better is because after the roasting cycle is done, 7 to 13 minutes, depending on the bean and your personal tastes, the machine goes into a cooling cycle for about 4 or 5 minutes. Still, you wait at least 24 hours before brewing for the best taste to develop.
It is much cheaper in the long run to roast your own, here, the better unground and pre roasted beans are around $10.00 per pound. The ones I buy online run right around $5.00 a pound. As with most everything though, you can pay about as much as you want to. One variety called Kopi Luwak, is selling for $300.00 per pound and probably youo couldn't find any to buy if you wanted to.
Glad to meet a fellow home roaster.

Ken

My neighbor (two houses down) works at the Starbucks corporate HQ in downtown Seattle. In exchange for pics of her kids, I get some pretty good stuff (coffee, that is :D ).

Margaret, that computer is all that is missing here :)

Ken

Ken,

Well, I'm afraid that cooling the beans is manual too. We just dump them in a large sieve and shake them around a while. This serves two purposes, one to cool the hot beans, and also to dislodge the skins.

To those of you not aware, there is a thin papery skin on the bean that is fairly bitter if you end up brewing it. It ends up floating out of the sieve like brown snow.

Happy brewing.

--tks