Submitted by Steve H on June 10, 2009 - 11:18am
So I figured there might be people in here into other artisan sorta stuff. Here's some coffee I roasted this morning. I was going for a City+ roast and this coffee particularly has a strong aroma and flavor of blueberries when roasted. Ethiopian Harrar Horse. This is a particularly fruity lot I had stored away from a few years ago. The uneven color is a characteristic of this bean.
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Coffee!
I would LOVE to home roast some coffee!
I once got some Kona coffee from the local supermarket and it was FANTASTIC, but only once!
It is believed that that bag must have been the last bag filled after roasting and was immediately shipped dirctly to the store, and I must have purchased it as soon as it hit the shelf!
I do have a set of Stainless Steel bowls and an industrial strength blow dryer that is intended for paint removal so I should be able to roast them!
Where do you get the good unroasted beans?
Michael, air popcorn poppers
are also good for roasting coffee. I see them at thrift stores all the time for a buck or two. I'm not sure how even of a roast you could get with a blow dryer, unless you were constanty agitating the beans while roasting. Some people roast in the oven, too.
Heat Gun
You have to be careful with air poppers because some of them will melt on you. I guess an OLD West Bend Poppery (II?) is a favorite. An iRoast can also be used and is what I started with. I then moved to a Stir Crazy/Turbo Oven method which worked but I didn't like the lack of control. I now roast with a Behmor drum roaster and I really want to get the thing probed so I can get some good temperature measurements but I can't decide how I want to do it.
Heat gun/dog bowl I've heard good things about, but never tried it. My understanding is its excellent for control. Be sure to be outside, because the smoke might get distracting. With small batches (like 1/4# or 1/8#) it shouldn't be so bad. My first time roasting a pound of coffee in my SC/TO was eye-opening. :)
Sweet Marias
I almost included it in the post, but my beans come from Sweet Marias. As others have indicated, they are great to work with. Specifically, Tom is very dedicated at picking his selection and its always great quality. I've done my green beans through a few places and SM is always better, even if I can shave $0.50 off somewhere else.
I'll bring the waffles, you make the coffee!
Steve, that coffee looks good. We roast in my household too, although not in large enough quantities to drink exclusively. Like with bread, once you taste properly roasted (not burnt!) good coffee, there's no going back. Where do you get your beans? I like Sweet Maria's (www.sweetmarias.com). Nice to see another coffee enthusiast on TFL.
Beans
Yep, I get my beans from SM also.
I will confess ...
Steve,
I'm afraid I have a similarly geeky approach to coffee as to bread. However, I have not gotten into home roasting. Maybe some day.
Michael,
Some of the good coffee roasters will sell green beans of their signature blends, but a place that specializes in selling green coffee beans is Sweet Maria's in Emeryville, CA. See:
http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.espresso.php
David
Great minds or something like it...
David, we posted about Sweet Maria's at the same time. They really are a great source of good honest beans.
or something like it ...
Hi, Crunchy.
I've ordered roasted beans from Sweet Maria's but not for a while. I like their attitude, and I've never heard anyone say anything negative about them. That's pretty remarkable.
After a couple of years of seriously sampling roasted beans from around the Country, I get my coffee almost exclusively from Intelligentsia or Stumptown. I like Ecco Caffé too. I was able to attend a cupping seminar at Stumptown about a year ago. Naturally, the coffee I liked the most had to be the one selling for $90 a pound (as I found out when I went to buy it)! It was a Bolivian COE winner.
David
Another way to roast....
You can also use a "Peanut Roaster". These are rotating steel drums that you attach to a large gas grill outdoors.
Peanut roaster
The first Coffee Bean (the Southern California coffee house chain) was a tiny store front in the farmer's market in Brentwood off of San Vicente. That's where I first got into fine coffee. It was about 1967, as I recall.
They roasted their coffees in small batches in an antique, gas-fired peanut roaster that they had salvaged from a bankrupt circus. It was way cool. I think they really went downhill when they started expanding.
David
Roasting beans that are a few
Roasting beans that are a few years old? Hmmmm. I roast mine within 6 months of receiving.
Visit coffeegeek.com for roasting tips if interested.
A Few Years Old
Yes, not ideal. I'm working through a backlog. :) Its hard to control myself when there are so many good beans around. My stash is finally down around 10 pounds.
Sigh. Yet another way for me
Sigh. Yet another way for me to spend my hard-earned money. I've always wanted to get serious about coffee and roast my own beanz, but that requires a commitment to an entirely new line of kitchen products. I've had my eye on an obscenely expensive conical burr grinder for years.
Fortunately, we have a dozen exceptional coffee houses in Louisville, so I just let them do the hard work of roasting, grinding, and brewing.
Equipment
Yes. I have a cabinet full of equipment. I take pride in being able to prepare coffee any way in my house: I have two Grinders (Mazzer Minis) (I need to sell one of them), Expresso Machine (Rancilio Expresso) Machine, Stovetop Espresso, Drip Machine (Technivorm), Aeropress, Ibrik, French Press, Manual Drip (Chemex). Still no vacuum pot. My roasters are an iRoast, SC/TO, and Behmor.
Coffee can be equipment-intensive. All that said though you can get by with a heat gun, dog bowl, (which will let you roast), whirly-blade grinder, and manual drip device (a simple one, or a Chemex if you are feeling fancy). Aeropress (WHICH ISN'T ESPRESSO, DESPITE THE BOX CLAIMS) is also pretty cheap and convenient and makes a hell of a cuppa.
First upgrade from there is a good burr grinder, like a Rocky or Mazzer, which will last forever and really improve flavor due to even grinding. The cheap burr grinders in store don't hold a candle.
Baratza Virtuoso is the best grinder for drip coffee
Enough stated!
Baratza
Ooh, a new grinder. SM sells it so it must be at least reasonably good. This was an empty niche for a while because most of these machines had poor build quality. (SM used to have a mixed review of the Solis Maestro.)
Cool! (Although I would still be tempted to get a Rocky or used Mazzer Mini.) :)
Grinders
I use a Rocky for drip and French press grinds and a Macap stepless, doserless grinder for espresso. The Rocky is a step up from the Baratza Virtuoso. The Macap is much superior to the Rocky. I think the Mazzer and Macap grinders are both of excellent quality.
If you are not making espresso, I think the Virtuoso is probably plenty grinder for your needs.
David
No manual grinders?
I'm surprized nobody mentioned them, considering how many people are using manual grain mills. I have a knee mill and a Turkish grinder, both by Zassenhaus, that produce a very consistent grind with very little effort. Grinding coffee in the morning is a contemplative process for me :).
Zassenhaus
I thought they had discontinued making these?
David
Hot Air Corn Popper
I used to roast my own coffee in the early 1980s. There was an article in Cuisine or Bon Appetite on how to roast it in a hot air popcorn machine. It worked great because it kept the beans in constant motion. The biggest problem I had was obtaining the green beans, but that was a long time ago and I lived in Dallas, so I expect this wouldn't be as big an issue today.
--Pamela
Air Popcorn Popper Method
This is pretty much the way I did it in the early 1980s.
http://www.sweetmarias.com/airpop/airpopmethod.php
Of course, you really can't ever use the machine for popcorn after this, but they are cheap enough today.
--Pamela
Home roasting
I've been home roasting my own coffee for a couple years now. I love it. I bought a SS drum roaster and do all my roasting on my BBQ. I use a Mazzer Mini grinder and my espresso machine is a Vibiemme double boiler. Already mentioned here is coffeegeek.com and I used it extensively for my journey into home roasting and brewing great coffee. Pair this up with homemade breads from this site and it's a hard combo to beat. Dave
They're back.
This comment is in response to David's inquiry about the Zass. I bought mine in the last two years and they're still made in Germany. Here is their current selection http://www.zassenhaus.com/index.php?id=17 . Sweet Maria's carries some.
I have roasted coffee at home
I have roasted coffee at home for a number of years now and always get beans from Sweet Marias and I too give them a high rating.
Recently I discovered Kickapoo Coffee Roasters from southwestern Wisconsin and find their roasted coffees to be the finest I have ever had. It was poorly roasted coffee that first moved me to roast my own but after my discovery of Kickapoo Coffee I often buy their coffee as it is better than mine and I dare say likely better than the vast majority of home roasted beans.
And now for the bread tie in (there HAS to be one here), I sometimes use coffee as a coloring/flavoring agent in in dark rye breads.
Jeff
I just noticed this thread -
I just noticed this thread - I'm a coffee roaster, too - and I get my beans from Sweet Maria's. In fact, I've posted a few OT threads about my baking there, too.
I do my roasting stove-top. Need to do a couple of batches today - I always manage to run out completely, even though it's better to let the coffee rest for a few days before drinking it. My son is convinced I roast the best coffee ever.
Only have one brewing apparatus - a Chemex I bought for a good price on eBay. Had a French Press but it finally gave way and broke (after a lot of use). Funny - I find stovetop roasting to be meditative - have a (now broken) Zass, but it hurt my hands too much (arthritis).
I've used very finely ground homeroast coffee in my biscotti - never thought of using it in rye bread. But then again, everytime I've tried rye, it's been a failure. Going to try again in the fall... been a bit too hot here to bake lately (says she as she gets ready to stand over the gas stove for 12 minutes to roast coffee!!)
Roasting Coffee
I just noticed the thread as well. I'm also a confirmed Sweert Mariah's addict. I started off with an iRoast 2, ran it for almost two years before I finally destroyed it, and replaced it with a Behmor. I use a Rancilio Rocky for grinding and a Rancilio Miss Sylvia as my espresso delivery apparatus.
My wife jokes that roasting coffee is my only hobby that actually *saves* money (green coffee is from $4-$7 a pound for the most part -- about half of roasted), and the quality can't be beat by anything you get in a store.