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I have been roasting my own coffee for a long time now. I use a modified bread maker and a heat gun in my shop, I use a window box fan to remove the chaff during roasting.
The bread maker is nice, it can do fairly large quantities: ~2lbs roasted.
That's a cool setup!
I don't know if I'll ever need to get that sophisticated by I definitely could use an upgraded burner for this. It's no big deal though, I can get by and I'll likely only roast the beans when someone requests or the holidays come by.
Tallbm, you're like my wife, super sensitive to caffeine. She can drink tea, but not coffee, and nothing caffeinated late in the day. When she can't sleep because she didn't follow her own rules, eating a banana will do the trick and she can fall asleep. Has something to do with the potassium.
I'll have to try the potassium thing if I end up eating too much chocolate some evening. I think there are some multi-vitamins with plenty of potassium in my pantry.
I tell you what. I'll take caffeine sensitivity any day over some of the much more unfortunate afflictions that people out there get :)
Sipping on the Burundi (African) coffee roasted to darker Full City+ / Light Vienna after a 90 hour rest. It rivals, and possibly exceeds, the Costa Rican for my favorite so far. It is a tad more complex than the Costa Rican. I'm bummed this mug is almost gone and I have to wait a few hours before I can have another (sensitive stomach).
It also has a sweeter aroma in the jar than any coffee I've roasted so far. My wife won't drink coffee, but she LOVES the smell of it. I had her smell the jar of Mexican coffee I had previously roasted, then the jar of the Burundi. Her eyes lit up with a whiff of the Burundi coffee. She agreed it smelled significantly sweeter.
Sipping on the Burundi (African) coffee roasted to darker Full City+ / Light Vienna after a 90 hour rest. It rivals, and possibly exceeds, the Costa Rican for my favorite so far. It is a tad more complex than the Costa Rican. I'm bummed this mug is almost gone and I have to wait a few hours before I can have another (sensitive stomach).
It also has a sweeter aroma in the jar than any coffee I've roasted so far. My wife won't drink coffee, but she LOVES the smell of it. I had her smell the jar of Mexican coffee I had previously roasted, then the jar of the Burundi. Her eyes lit up with a whiff of the Burundi coffee. She agreed it smelled significantly sweeter.
Does it taste any sweeter? I like the idea of it smelling sweeter. My ol'lady loves the sweet stuff so that is where I'm heading with all of this. If so I will keep that in mind for the next batch of sweet beans :)
Very inventive redheelerdog! Did you come up with that on your own or did you follow an intractable or something? I have a Ronco rotisserie I am considering trying with a drum basket of coffee beans.
Does it taste any sweeter? I like the idea of it smelling sweeter. My ol'lady loves the sweet stuff so that is where I'm heading with all of this. If so I will keep that in mind for the next batch of sweet beans :)
It might be sweeter at a slightly lighter roast level. It does have a toffee, chocolatey taste that hits me perfectly at my preferred darker roast level. I haven't tried the Yirg yet, or even ordered it, as I'm just beginning my exploration of the African coffees. Growing altitude seems to make the difference. The higher the altitude, the less oxygen available to the plant, and the longer it grows. It is a more anaerobic growing process. The Costa Rican was grown at 1750 meters (around 5800 feet). The Burundi was grown at 2000 meters (just under 6600 feet). Most of the African coffees I've looked at are grown at the higher elevations. The other coffee's I've tried from Central and South America were grown at 1000-1650 meters (3300 to 5400 feet). I can't say definitively that's the reason for the sweetness, but apparently it does make a difference.
It might be sweeter at a slightly lighter roast level. It does have a toffee, chocolatey taste that hits me perfectly at my preferred darker roast level. I haven't tried the Yirg yet, or even ordered it, as I'm just beginning my exploration of the African coffees. Growing altitude seems to make the difference. The higher the altitude, the less oxygen available to the plant, and the longer it grows. It is a more anaerobic growing process. The Costa Rican was grown at 1750 meters (around 5800 feet). The Burundi was grown at 2000 meters (just under 6600 feet). Most of the African coffees I've looked at are grown at the higher elevations. The other coffee's I've tried from Central and South America were grown at 1000-1650 meters (3300 to 5400 feet). I can't say definitively that's the reason for the sweetness, but apparently it does make a difference.
A few days ago I roasted the rest of the Costa Rican, so that was the last of the green beans I had. So I ordered more. Two more single origin green beans were delivered today: Brazil Adrano Volcano Coffee (heirloom coffee) And (Primos)Nicaragan.
I ordered 2 more pounds of Costa Rican, and 2 lbs each of Kenyan and Ethiopian green coffees. All from Sweet Maria's.
The first time I ordered from them I had the coffee shipped USPS. Took more than a week to go less than 100 miles. This time I had it shipped UPS. Arrived MUCH more quickly and only cost pennies more.
Kind of reminds me of buying charcoal; once you find a deal and start buying, it's hard to stop!
I read recently that one way to tell the difference between properly roasted, fresh roast coffee, and canned store bought, is to taste it after it has cooled. Cold, fresh roasted coffee will not have changed in flavor, just heat. I'm sipping on what's left of my afternoon coffee, one of my new favorites, a Rwandan roast. Sure it's cold, but it still tastes so rich and delicious. Man oh man, I'm hooked.
Sipping on my first roast of the Ethiopian (it is not Yirgacheffe). I took it to a roast temp of 431F, slightly lower temp, not quite as dark as some of the others I've done. It is definitely a sweeter tasting coffee. My wife, who is not a coffee drinker, but loves the smell of fresh ground coffee, perked up the minute she walked in the kitchen after I finished the grind. She said, "That smells wonderful, different than the other coffees."
So far I've been impressed with all the African coffees, much more so than South and Central America. Costa Rican is the only exception.
I haven't tried the Asian coffees yet. Sumatra and Papua New Guinea are on the top of my list to order and roast.
Sipping on my first roast of the Ethiopian (it is not Yirgacheffe). I took it to a roast temp of 431F, slightly lower temp, not quite as dark as some of the others I've done. It is definitely a sweeter tasting coffee. My wife, who is not a coffee drinker, but loves the smell of fresh ground coffee, perked up the minute she walked in the kitchen after I finished the grind. She said, "That smells wonderful, different than the other coffees."
So far I've been impressed with all the African coffees, much more so than South and Central America. Costa Rican is the only exception.
I haven't tried the Asian coffees yet. Sumatra and Papua New Guinea are on the top of my list to order and roast.
I finished roasting out the rest of the 2 pound bag of the Yirgs I bought.
I took on trying to roast a larger batch than before and I am told they came out good but they have a very very very slight touch of bitter to them on the finish.
After that batch I then roasted the much smaller batch of what was left over and couldn't fit and that one is said to be sweet, smooth, and no hint of bitter.
The difference is that the larger batch took much longer to roast to hit the temps where the smaller one did not.
My initial batches were about 8 ounces and they are the middle ground between the large and small batch.
The lesson learned for my little setup is to do batches of no larger than 6-7 ounces of green beans at a time rather than trying to push 9-10+ ounces of green beans at a time.
With my little electric burner these smaller batches are much easier to manage.
I have already been told that when these batches run out that more will likely need to be roasted hahaha :D
Just finishing up the last of this 3lbs of Primos Nicaraguan. This has been a VERY good bean, but I do get a bit more acidic profile as you also reported Ray. I will roast the 1lb of Volcano beans I have tonight and report on it and its also time to order some more beans. So far I have only gone with ordering through Amazon, but I think this time I'm going to follow your lead on Sweet Marias.
I've been real happy with Sweet Maria's. You get a better deal per pound if you order more of the same coffee. In other words, 2 lbs of the one type of coffee costs less per pound than 1 pound of the same coffee; 5 lbs of one coffee costs less per pound than smaller amounts, etc.
The second batch of Costa Rican coffee I ordered from them was just as good as the first batch. Consistency is a good thing.
I also noticed that there are fewer bad beans (or none) in the Sweet Maria's coffee than in the others I have ordered. There haven't been too many in the other brands, but I have thrown beans away from them. Not so with Sweet Maria's.
I've cut back to just one brew a day (16 oz mug), with a rare second brew in the afternoon. I'm now consistently roasting 10 oz of green coffee to 8.2 - 8.25 oz of roasted coffee. That is lasting me 4 to 6 days, so I'm going through about 3-5 lbs a month of green coffee, more when we have company. Planning for the 4 days rest before the first brew is all part of my system now.
I'll start buying in 5 lb bags now that I've narrowed down my favorites. I look forward to my morning coffee now much like I do the meat that will come off my smoker. It's all memorable and yummy!
I had not looked at the Peruvian coffees. After reading the Sweet Marias write ups, they are going on my list of "next" coffees to try. Thanks for posting!
I roasted 10 oz of green Kenyan beans this morning from Sweet Maria's. They get a pretty high rating. It was the second roast of this coffee. I took the first roast, back on 1/30/18, too dark. The temp on my IR therm read 437F but the roast only took twelve and a half minutes. I decided to go to a much lower final temp today. Roast only took 10 minutes, possibly a little less, to get to 431F. Still, it exactly filled one of the coffee jars I use to store roasted beans. Only lost 15.5% of the total weight.
I've made some minor changes to how I'm setting up my side burner and the beans are roasting faster (I'll post pics tomorrow. It's raining now). I thought today the beans might have roasted too fast, so I looked up what a faster roast does to the taste of the roasted beans. Turns out you get more of the fruity, sweet nature of the bean and less of the roast flavor with a faster roast. Faster roasts can cause the bean to be more acidic, too. We'll see. I've got 4 more days to wait it out. I rest everything for at least 96 hours before I taste it. It might just be my preference, but I can taste a difference between a 72 hour rest and a 96 hour rest. The grinds on each bean taste the same after the beans have rested 96 hours. Before then there are noticeable changes in flavor.
BTW, the Kenyan is good, but not one of my favorites after the first roast. That's why I tried changing the roast profile today.
I set aside the one's I'm not crazy about, then I roast them dark and grind them to use exclusively in my Moka pots. I cream and lightly sugar Moka coffee. The sugar hides the flavors I don't like. When I brew with Drip, French press, or Melita Cone/Clever Dripper, I just add some cream (half and half or coconut milk actually), no sugar. That way I can taste the flavors I like.
For a couple decades or more I was completely happy buying roasted, store-bought beans, grinding them myself, and making my coffee. The ONE major point that sold me on roasting green beans at home was roasters saying store-bought coffee beans taste dead and flat because too much time has passed since the beans were roasted. Fresh roasted and ground beans taste alive and fresh. Why?
When beans are roasted, the gas CO2 is produced and trapped in the bean. The gas contains flavor, but the longer it has been since the coffee was roasted, the more the bean degasses. Think of it like a soda pop. You open a 2 liter bottle of soda pop and don't drink it all. Into the fridge it goes and two weeks later you decide you want some more. It still contains the flavor of the syrup in the soda pop, but doesn't taste any where near as lively as when you first opened it because the CO2 has degassed from the solution into the air from the first opening. Fresh roasted coffee doesn't taste "fizzy," but it definitely tastes more "alive" than the store-bought beans.
Recently I've been using up some store-bought, Mexican Organic beans for a second cup of coffee with my lunch. I got the idea of taking pics to compare the store bought to fresh home roasted. The "liveliness" of the beans is apparent by the "bloom" of the coffee, which is the off-gassing of CO2 trapped in the bean from the roasting process. As stated above, that gas contains flavor. When the ground coffee is exposed to hot water at the proper temperature, the grind releases the gas and the flavors contained within.
Below are the comparison pics of the store-bought and ground Mexican Organic beans to the recently roasted (2/13/18) Costa Rican beans.
Getting ready to brew some coffee with my Clever Dripper and 200F hot water.
First pour: merely wetting the coffee to start the "bloom" process.
Store bought Mexican Organic coffee beans. Note how the surface has some gas, but is relatively flat compared to the second picture.
Fresh roasted Costa Rican coffee, first pour. Note how the surface appears more rounded with more bubbles of CO2.
Second pour: approximately 20-30 seconds after wetting the grounds, slowly pour water over the beans to the desired level. In the first picture of the store-bought Mexican Organic, there is still some gas being released, but nothing like the second and third picture of the fresh roasted Costa Rican coffee.
Store-bought Mexican Organic.
Fresh roasted Costa Rican coffee (following two pics)
Put the lid on the Clever Dripper, brew four minutes, drink and enjoy.
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for the impact on Global Warming due to the release of CO2 greenhouse gas from making my daily morning and occasional afternoon coffee.
