Photoblogging: My first coffee roasting experience

I first stumbled upon some websites about home coffee roasting exactly two days before leaving for the dorms last summer. I've been dying to do it all year, and the day I got home, I navigated to www.sweetmarias.com, the best site I have come across, and bought four pounds of assorted green coffee.

It had never occured to me that it was possible, let alone easy, to roast coffee at home. The reasons for it are numerous. First of all, green coffee is cheap. Four pounds of some of the best coffee in the world cost $17 plus $11 UPS shipping – considerably less expensive than four pounds of shitty roasted coffee from Starbuck (what do they charge… $9 for 12 ounces of crap?). Most importantly, home roasting is the only way to get the most out of coffee. Beans oxidize and are considered stale only five days after roasting. If you grind the coffee, it will be stale after only 24 hours. Chances are, no matter what you think, you have never had "fresh" coffee before. I never have.

Basically, I'm obsessed with coffee, I tend to be an obnoxious purist about everything I like, and I'm a huge dork. Obviously I need to roast my own coffee.

It's actually quite simple. You just need an hot air popcorn popper (you can buy specialized roasting equipment, but it's really not necessary for a beginner).

Here is the green coffee:

The popper:

Yes, it's gross. This is old and probably fossilized.

I used a broiler pan to cool the beans.

This is the first batch, four ounces for Organic Peru "El Guabo" just before I started the roast.

About a minute into the roast. Not much of a change yet.

This is about three minutes into the roast.

This is about five minutes into the roast. The beans are now a dark brown. As a novice, it can be hard to judge whether they are done or not.

I ended up taking them out after six minutes, but they are still not as dark as I would have liked. Certainly not a failure by any means, however.

I roasted a second batch, this time a coffee from Papau New Guinea. I also roasted these for six minutes, but the roast progressed much faster this time and I got them exactly where I wanted them. Notice the patches of oil that have appeared.

It only took about 20 minutes to roast eight ounces of coffee, so you can see that home roasting is an economical and fast way to get coffee that would put even the best coffeeshops to shame.

Of course, I say this without having actually brewed a cup. It's best to let the beans sit overnight before grinding and brewing. I will report back tomorrow.