any home roasters out there? (coffee)

[maxd]

Today I received my first batch of green coffee beans for home roasting, 5 kilos of classics and personal favs. Attach Removed (Old not found)

I don't have any sophisticated roasting gear so I'll be trying my hand at the bush-league methods for a while. My first attempt was skillet roasting -- yup, an old cast iron pan on the gas stove -- and here they are, just out of the pan.



Roast time was about 14 mins. Obviously not the most consistent results known to man but it's Columbia Supremo which is supposed to be pretty forgiving. I have to say, they smell divine! I'll let them sit overnight and try them at lunch tomorrow.

If anyone is already into the home roast scene I'd love to hear how you do yours. At this point the roasting machines are a mystery to me but I expect I'll be looking at them sooner or later.

 

[Jasminebed]

A Good Cup of Coffee

While I love a good cup of coffee, I pretty much like bad coffee too.

I lived upstairs from

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for quite a few years, and purchaed a modestly price of coffee most days. They upped the quality of their decaff when I was pregnant.

My roomie and I have pretty much settle on middling beans and we grind them for every pot. Leave me enough money to gamble, lol.

Home Roasting? Roasted beans are good for quite a bit, and the equipment is pretty expensive. A skillet offers pretty uneven roasting, more like toasting.

But, I wouldn't turn down a cup of your brew maxd. I think I mentionend I pretty much like all coffee.

 

[chayton]

It looks really good! I remember reading somewhere you can use a hot air popcorn popper....?

Edit: Quick google turned up

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with some videos.

 

[maxd]

I remember reading somewhere you can use a hot air popcorn popper....

Yes, I've read a bit about that, sounds quite promising. And for an entry fee of $20 or so it seems pretty attractive. I reckon I'll have to try it, it just sounds too wonderfully DIY not to.

From what I can tell the main advantages of serious roasting gear are roasting in quantity, consistency, and waste control (chaff and smoke). Since I plan on doing small batches -- a week's worth of beans at most -- I'm not sure any of that really applies, or that I care very much.

Doubtless I'm suffering from noobie enthusiasm but the roast consistency thing seems maybe a bit anal, obsessing over a detail that doesn't really matter a whole lot. I mean if you look over the roasting notes at a site like Sweet Maria's (that link Chayton posted, awesome site!) the flavours mentioned for the various roasting levels generally all sound pretty good to me. Of course you don't want to over-roast since that kills off a lot of the individual varietal characteristics but other than that ... a little roast variance sounds like a good thing.

I've got 10+ pounds of beans to play with here so I reckon I'll learn what's what as I work my way through it.

 

[chayton]

We have a popcorn maker but ours is one of those cheapie plastic ones that looks like a popcorn cart, it would overheat and burn out before roasting a bean I think. The coffee would end up tasting like melted plastic...yuck.

 

[Akrasia]

Coffeeeeee

We grind our own every day but I have been thinking about trying to go the whole hog like you have just done. Please let us know how it goes!! Also, where do you buy the un-roasted beans?

 

[maxd]

We have a popcorn maker but ours is one of those cheapie plastic ones that looks like a popcorn cart....

Ya, I don't know bugger all about the electric popcorn poppers. I've got one of those stove-top, crank the handle Whirly-Pop jobs which as it happens is supposed to be pretty good for coffee roasting too. For an electric I'd have to follow recommendations like those at the link you posted. I tend to hate the noise of such things though so I'm going to try my hand at the various manual methods first.

There's actually a company in Australia that sells skillet roasted coffee and has done for a decade or so (if I have the story straight). From the results of my first attempt I can see how you could, through practice, refine the process enough to get fairly consistent results. It's not an unpleasant procedure either so what the hell, if it works it works.

One of the more appealing ideas I've come across is a wire mesh drum that you mount on blocks above your stove element and crank by hand until the coffee is roasted. The get-up looks a little Rube Goldberg and obviously it's totally hands-on -- no slacking off! -- but rumour has it that flame-roasted coffee has flavour second to none so what the hell. I roast and grind my own spices (an enduring curry addiction), do popcorn with the Whirly-Pop and grind my coffee in a manual grinder so a little cranking is not going to scare me off.

@Akrasia: from what I can tell the US and UK are way ahead of the rest of us in terms of green beans being readily available, lots of internet shops, etc. Here in the EU things are not so progressive but I was directed to a guy in Holland, ongebrand.nl, who has a good selection and reasonable prices. Shipping to me here in France was 2 days. For you in Oz things may be pretty good since I understand there's a major coffee appreciation revolution going on there these days. If nothing else I'd suggest getting in touch with those skillet roasting guys I mentioned to see if they could help you out. I'll rummage around for their URL, will post back here when I find it.

 

[chayton]

I don't know much about them either, the one we have is extremely noisy (like gravel in a blender) but my mom has one that's a lot quieter.

On the very bottom of that page I linked to, some guy had a tip about a pizza pan or something too.

 

[incrediblestuff]

Well, i'm a fool for coffee, drink it all day everyday, and the occassional bottle of water inbetween.
But, even despite my long gastronomic history (working in it and enjoying it) i've not have had the pleasure yet of tasting home roasted beans.
However, judging from the remarkable difference of grinding your roasted beans vs. already grinded coffee, i can imagine there would be a big + factor.
I'd have nothing against winning 10 pounds of those beans to experiment with instead of beer when i happen to win a beerfest riddle
My best cup of coffee so far is from freshly grinded high quality beans, prepared in a classic perculator.
Other then that, i am lazy or hasty, and use nespresso, which imo is the best instant cuppa ive come across yet.

 

[maxd]

Just ground and made my first shot of home roasted. Not bad! I'd have to say the shot -- Italian (Bialetti) stovetop unit -- was more complex than any coffee I've ever tasted -- thick, rich, really fills the mouth -- yet less yummy than I expected. I'm probably pushing it since everything I read says let the beans sit for 24-72 hours, I roasted them barely 12 hours ago. Also seemed that the roast tasted "blonder" than it looked. Go figure. Be interesting to see if it tastes any different this time tomorrow.

 

[maxd]

So I let this first batch rest a couple days, tried again. Certainly better than they were before but ... meh. Too bright and sourish -- I guess the coffee geek term would be "winey"-- and none of the deeper, broader, chocolate richness I like in coffee. One interesting thing though: I bought a batch of commercially roasted beans from my preferred local roaster and compared those, side-by-side, to mine. Mine actually produced a much thicker, richer shot. It's as if they have great potential but I haven't got there yet. Anyway, ended up tossing the first batch of beans away.

Tried a second batch using a flame-roasted technique. Yikes! Great way to scorch beans and produce a completely uneven roast. Had to pick through the beans to toss the fried ones and re-roast those that were obviously too underdone. And the weird this was there was no cracking of the beans, not a one. It works much better if you raise the beans well above the flame, 6 inches or more, and roast off of the rising heat. Got the cracking then and seemed like a much more controlled roast. Still, unless that batch ends up tasting unusually good, which I doubt, I think it'll be another one for the trash.

Finally did a third batch with the skillet again, basically a repeat of the first attempt but aiming for a darker roast. This went much better than the first round, both darker and more even roasting results. Judging from the roasting descriptions at

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I'd guesstimate that I ended up with a Full City or Full City+ roast. I tasted one of the beans and if that is any indication this could be my first successful attempt. Definitely going to give it a couple days to rest though, I've leaned that much from the first attempt.

All of this has answered the question of why everyone is obsessed with consistency of roast: some spots on the roast scale produce the tastes you want, others definitely don't. So you want to find what you like and then figure out how to get all your beans to that spot. Easier said than done with these DIY roasting techniques but there you go.

 

[maxd]

If anyone cares, and there's no particular reason you should, a recent thread -- Summer break for Max starting around post #16 or so -- ended up derailing into coffee talk. Items of (relative) note include a discussion of the Aeropress VS French Press, etc.

On a related note I've been roasting coffee at home for a month now, ten batches in all. This is my current roasting system, and yes, it is a popcorn popper:

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Soon I will be adding a highly technical upgrade such as this guy has done: