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Home Roasting Your Coffee

For coffee lovers, there are three areas in which they are very strict in the preparation of their coffee: variety selection, roasting, and brewing. They would love to be in control of all three of these aspects.

Nowadays, people can select and buy their coffee choices from almost anywhere, including green (unroasted) coffee beans. Right now, many coffee lovers will also want to roast their own coffee beans, grind these themselves, and brew them accordingly.

The whole point, really, is to keep everything fresh: from the selection of the beans, to the roasting, all the way down to the brewing.

Why choose home roasting

Coffee has a very short shelf life: it stales quickly from day one to about ten days or two weeks (if they are not ground yet) and if they are not properly stored.

If carefully handled, green beans (unroasted) can be stored up to at least a year without quality loss of flavor. You can keep as many varieties on hand and mix-and-match them to create your own customized blends.

You can then have better quality coffee every time because it’s fresh. You will learn, too, how to roast your coffee exactly how you like it, to what degree, and with what blends.

Notes on roasting equipment

A decent starter home roasting set goes for around a hundred and fifty dollars (and up). At its most basic, you can even do your roasting in a skillet or wok. But, you don’t want to skimp on taste, so why should you skimp on equipment?

The most common of these are known as fluid bed roasters, since they roast on a “bed” of hot air. The principle is blowing hot air up through the beans. These roasters have built-in timers, a cooling cycle that automatically cuts in after the roasting, and a chaff collection device at the top.

The other home roasters use a different method. Instead of hot air, they use an electric element to heat a rotating drum that holds the beans. Some say that drum roasters produce a roast with more body than is possible with a fluid bed roaster.

One important note on home roasting: smoke. Roasting should be done outdoors on warmer days. Range hoods can be effective if the roaster is raised closer to it.

With any method, chaff is also a big issue. Removing chaff can be done by pouring the beans back and forth between colanders.

The total roasting process takes from 5 to 25 minutes depending on the type of roasting machine used.

Notes on the beans

Unroasted beans are 15 to 40% less expensive than the roasted kind. If the retailer charges the same price for both, go somewhere else if you’re being taken advantage of.

Importers store their unroasted beans in cloth (or plastic mesh) bags in cool, dry, and dark locations, with good air circulation. For general conditions, store green beans in airtight plastic containers.

Unroasted beans are generally light green, although monsooned and decaffeinated beans have different colors. After the first few minutes of roasting, the beans begin to turn yellow, then a very light brown.

Until you can readily judge bean color, keep a sample of your target roast for comparison purposes. Ground coffee will have a somewhat different color than whole bean.

Beans lose up to twenty percent of their weight after roasting due to the loss of moisture. However, they also expand and take up a greater space.

Roasted beans are at their best anywhere starting from four to twenty-four hours after roasting, depending largely on bean variety and the roast.

Some varieties, notably espresso blends, are at their best thirty-six to forty-eight hours after roasting. This process (holding off on brewing for a specific period) is usually called “resting”.

The now roasted beans should be kept away from oxygen and should be in airtight containers stored in closed cabinets.

Home roasting your coffee can be fun, educational, and fulfilling. You can make your very own brew and drink it, too.

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