Home coffee roasting

[scubadoo97]

Any home coffee roasters on this site?

I've been roasting coffee at home for around 6 years. Fun hobby and the coffee is fantastic.

Anyone else into roasting coffee to share your history and techniques?

 

[mrh]

Sounds interesting to me. So what are the benifits of roasting your own? Other then the fun. Is it cheaper then buying by much?

Mark

 

[buffalosmoke]

Yep....I roast at home too when I get the chance. I have a really great commercial roaster nearby....so we have been getting our beans there lately.

I use a Hearthware gourmet hot air roaster that I modified to include an adjustable heat control. Lets me have more control over the roasting. Usually get green beans from Sweet Maria's, but have bought from other places as well.

Have too much coffee stuff...it's a sickness too. French presses, moka pots, espresso machine, grinders, etc....

I'm sure you are familiar with the Coffee Geek site?

 

[smokebuzz]

I like that fresh roasted coffee, sure beats the heck out of the gas station stuff i get to drink

 

[scubadoo97]

The benefits are many. There are some cost savings as green beans can run around $2-6/lb but that is not your average Folgers coffee. These same types of coffee would sell for $12-16/lb at your gourmet coffee store. Estate grown beans from all over the world.

The taste of fresh roasted coffee is something that once you have been accustomed to you have a hard time going back to something that was roasted months before. If you have a local roaster where you can get really fresh coffee not something they roasted last month then a large drum roaster with a knowledgeable roaster is a good find. For most of us that's not something we can easily find or afford.

Like smoking food, cooking and the like it's a hobby.

The down side is generic coffee at home and coffee in restaurants will taste bitter and nasty by comparison. You will be spoiled

Card carrying member of coffeegeek and have more coffee paraphernalia than any one person should have.

My roaster is a homemade variety which is a combination of a stircrazy popcorn maker which acts as bean stirrer and a convection turbo oven which provides the heat. The plumbing elbow is to eject the papery chaff that is blown off the beans as they roast.

If anyone is interested in another hobby LMK and I will gladly give you lots of resource sites to visit.

 

[drlouis]

I'v considered roasting my own, never did get into it.

your pic is missing...

 

[scubadoo97]

Thanks. Picture's back up

For anyone interested in exploring coffee roasting check out sweetmarias. About everything would want to know about coffee roasting and preparation. Or at least a gateway


http://www.sweetmarias.com/

 

[drlouis]

that looks like quite a contraption. how much effort did it require to put together? I assume you opened the stir crazy and removed/disconnected the heating element?

 

[scubadoo97]

Right you are. Most disconnect the heating element in the stircrazy. I put it on a switch so I can turn it on to preheat and for those cold Florida days when the ambient temperature is in the 40s or 50s.

The basic elements you can put together in 5 mins. The stir rod's drive shaft in the stircrazy is is made of plastic. It will melt over time. You can remake one with a series of sockets, bolt and nuts.

 

[drlouis]

so how much is the convection thingie on the top? how much would a guy be lookin' at for the whole project? (ballpark) (I have an old stir-crazy base I could use)

40 or 50 aint cold! :D thats shirt-sleeve weather round these parts.

 

[meat hunter]

Ok, Im interested in this, but confused. When you say you are toasting your own coffee, are you just getting plain beans and roasting them? How does doing this differ from store bought? Say folgers french roast? Sounds like another hobby I could get into :)

 

[drlouis]

get a good (burr) grinder and buy a pound of fresh whole bean coffee (not (NOT!!) from the grocery store) and grind brew some (I prefer a good esspresso machine or french press), and you will begin to understand what the difference can be. I've never had any that was truly fresh roasted, but just freshly opened/ground/brewed made a believer out of me.

and yeah, you buy "green" coffee and roast it.

sweet marias is a good site as is coffee geek

http://www.breworganic.com/Coffee/HowToRoast.htm
http://www.sweetmarias.com/instructions.html

 

[scubadoo97]

Convection ovens vary but new you can pick them up for around $60. I had one go out on me which I have since repaired but ended up buying just the top from Sunpentown for around $45. The spring form pan you most likely have in the cabinet if you can steal it from your significant other. So for just over $100 you can have a roaster that can roast almost a full pound in ~ 13-15 mins.

Meat Hunter, start by buying whole beans and grinding on demand then multiply by 10 if you are using fresh estate beans. It's hard to go back to store bought coffee after you've been roasting your own. Just doesn't taste right. Like any hobby this is the tip of the iceberg. The obsession goes way deeper when you get into espresso. Real espresso where the grinder is more important than the machine and technique is everything.

 

[drlouis]

got instructions for that roaster you can link me too? I'm officially interested.

 

[scubadoo97]

Here's a video of someone using a SC/CO roaster. I personally think you need the spacer since I've had beans hit the fan in the convection oven without it.




I search around and find more information on making this roaster when I a have more time. Some people can find these convection ovens at thrift stores for a song. I've not been so luck. Worth hitting a few thrift stores to find out.

The new home roaster out there is the Behmor. It runs $299 and is a no fuss roaster. Batch size is small than this Macgyver roaster I'm using.

 

[phreak]

woohoo! I have a whirley-pop popcorn maker. I'm going to give this method http://www.sweetmarias.com/stovepopmethod.html a try(I especially like the fact that is says, "This is a conduction method, and produces a roast close to drum roasting (just more smoky since there is no air flow").

Where do you get your green coffee locally???

 

[scubadoo97]

Good sources for green beans

Sweetmarias linked above
Coffee Bean Corral http://www.coffeebeancorral.com/custom.aspx?id=41
Unclebeanz http://www.unclebeanz.com/merchant2/...tegory_Code=HR
Ebay search for green coffee beans
Do a google search for green coffee beans. There are lots of sites

I have been a member of the greencoffeecoop for a long time
http://www.greencoffee.coop/
and also a member of the green coffee buying group.
http://www.greencoffeebuyingclub.com/index.php


These two sites are where I get my green. I usually buy in 10-15# lots to offset the member fees and shipping. I have 50-80# of green beans on hand at any one time and roast about 2# a week. I don't drink coffee all day but when I drink it, I want it to be good. Like my BBQ

 

[drlouis]

cool, thanks. I'll look around too, my google-fu is reasonably strong, I thought maybe you'd have the link handy. nice video too.

another hobby... my wife will be thrilled

 

[scubadoo97]

Here's the SC/CO page from sweetmarias


http://homeroast.pbwiki.com/SCTO

Lots of associated links on that page. Some of the sites I had saved where too old and lost.

Don't worry about the wife. Mine makes me send her off with coffee when she's away on a business so she can brew in the hotel room drip maker which is becoming harder to find these days with the crappy pods.
And if I don't she comes back saying she needs some good coffee as the stuff she drank was awful. We do travel with coffee, a grinder and an Aeropress. Nice to wake up to good coffee when on vacation. All I need is some hot water and we are set.

I have to send my kids off with coffee as they go back to college.

I started off with a Fresh Roast Plus which is a modified hot air popcorn popper and is an off the shelf coffee roaster. Like air poppers the batch size is so small it became a pain to keep up. I like to roast at least 14 oz of green at a time. If I had to roast more than once a week It would become a job.

 

[drlouis]

I've finally got her drinking mochas, working on getting to where she can handle straight coffee with cream and sugar....

followed that link, and it looks like that setup will be juuust a little larger than ideal for me right now, as I get the wife drinking 'real' coffee I'll grow into it. right now a lb lasts me about a month (just a little longer), and I can do around 6-8 oz at a time in the SC... so it should work. I just have to start looking for parts! thank you!

to you.