Git that roast on!

Ok! So today I decided to try my hand at the old home roasting. I got my beans from Sweet Marias on Monday and have been itching to give it a shot. So, here goes!

Step 1: Pick the beans I wanted to try.
I bought their sampler pack where they pick the beans for you. That's good for a rookie like me, since I am still kinda reading up on what beans have what characteristics of flavor/etc. So, I decided to try the India Matadakad Estate Peaberry.

Step 2: Prep the ole coffee "roaster". Yes, it's true. You CAN roast coffee in an old school hot-air pop corn popper, but, it has to be a specific model. Sweet Maria's site has more info on the reasons/etc, but, I have the West Bend Poppery 2. An easy modification to help with the monitoring of the roasting process is to install a candy/deep fryer thermometer to check the temp of the beans/roasting chamber during the process. So, I picked up a few washers, some Krazy Glue, and found a bunch of misc hardware pieces laying around to make the thermometer stand up straight. Done!

Step 3: Measure out the beans...says 2/3-3/4 cups. Since this was my first time, I went with 2/3.

Step 4: Plug in and wait! I realized I didn't have a very good timer to actually time the duration of the roasting process, so I went and bought one afterwards. This time I used the oven timer. Basically you just watch the beans go around and around, and, depending on how dark/light you like your coffee, you unplug the popper after a certain amount of time. I like mine Italian style, so, I let it go a bit. Came out super dark! The second batch, I decided to roast a bit shorter for a lighter "breakfast" sort of cup. My house got SUPER smokey, but, OH MY LORD did it smell good! During the roasting process the chaff, or membraney sorta skin that lives on the green bean comes off. Looks like dead skin alright!

Step 5: Cool the beans.
I was doing the transfer method between two colanders back and forth. This helps facilitate the cooling process.




Step 6: Store, OR, make a press. I decided to store the lighter breakfast roast for tomorrow am, and, try the Italian/darker roast now. I could taste it for sure, but, I was in such a rush to drink it I didn't really measure out the amount of water accurately. It definitely watered down the taste. I'm interested to see how tomorrow's am blend goes.