Roasting Coffee
My Coffee Cabinet
Once you have roasted your own, you will have embarked on the path few leave. After getting in the driver’s seat of your coffee experience, after having control over every aspect of the coffee, after experiencing just how good coffee can be, nothing on the store shelf can remotely compare, no matter how many artificial flavors they stuff in there. In short, you are transformed into a coffee snob. My journey began about ten years ago. And thanks to the internet. In my research – an act of self-improvement that my wife calls playing – I came across the home-roasting coffee possibility. And I came across Sweet Maria’s – a company owned and run by Tom that imports coffee after meticulously cupping each lot and determining it was of the quality he demanded. I was amazed at how easy roasting is – his website opened a whole new world of culinary possibilities. Each coffee from each region is distinctively different – I was essentially able to tour the world in my cup.
Mise en place - everything in place.
My first “roaster” was a West Bend Poppery II popcorn popper. It is a fluid-bed popper that pumps in hot air in a way to create rotation – something that’s important to get an even roast. These poppers roasted coffee VERY fast. Shotgun roasting. A typical coffee roast is a journey of temperature, going from ambient to over 400F. During this journey the bean undergoes a transformation and marks stages in that transformation twice by a kind of popping and later by ejecting chips off it’s shell – a more subtle popping. These transitions are called “cracks.” Coffee is timed by these cracks – first and second crack. After first crack, which sounds like a subdued popping corn (not as many pops) the coffee enters a stage where it is palatable. These stages are judged by color that ranges from City to Full City and on to Full City+, Vienna and finally French. Much beyond French and you have a little chunk of coal. Second crack usually hits around Full City+. These stages mark the progression of caramelization of the sugars in the bean, as well as the releasing of oils from the seed and more fundamental changes in the bean’s structure and chemistry. A very comprehensive description including pictures of each stage can be found here, thanks to Tom of Sweet Marias.
WB Poppery II, Hearthware Precision and Alpenrost roasters.
The fluid-bed roaster roasted so fast that first crack ended about when second crack began. This blending of the cracks meant you had to be fast and decisive about ending the roast. It is a messy way to roast, using the popper. As coffee is roasted, bits of lining left on the seed after milling sloughs off and blows up in the air. That’s called chaff.
Eventually I graduated to a Hearthware Precision fluid-bed roaster that had a chaff collector. It was a great roaster. It was nice being able to roast without the chaff flying everywhere and I could watch the roast progress thru the glass too. It still only roasted about a cup of beans tho so I was roasting often. The roast was so quick that even relatively heavy bodied coffees were bright to the palate.
So the next step in my evolution as a coffee roaster was a drum roaster. The best roaster available to home-roasters back in that day was the Alpenrost. While I’ve read lotsa complaints on it, and my first one failed (I bought another while the first was being replaced and now have a pair of them) I really like my Alps. They’ve been rock-solid reliable since then. I don’t use the presets – they’re just timers based on crude approximations anyway. The only way to automate a preset is to be able to measure the rise in temperature, detect the cracks and balance that with ambient temperature, and have the particular characteristics of the bean itself programmed in – all of which effects the roast. Not something to be found in a counter-top home-roaster. Yet, anyway.
The roast is underway. Picture isn't enough - you have to be there.
The difference between the drum roaster and the fluid-bed roasters was almost night and day. I couldn’t see the roast like I could with the Precision, but it was much quieter and roasted slower so that there was a separation of cracks by way of minutes, so in the end ease of roasting remained equivalent. Of course, I drool over the roasters that have the ability to extract beans during different levels of roast without interrupting the roast to gauge how close they were to being ready but that’s professional equipment that’s often priced at a grand per pound of capacity and start off at seven pounds. Perhaps one of these days. For now, my trusty Alpenrosts suit me just fine and have many more years of useful life ahead of them, especially since I have a hardly used spare and the first one is still going strong after nearly a decade. They’re not sold anymore tho. Today’s counter-top drum roasters are the Gene Cafe, the Behmor and the HotTop. All of which are great roasters.
Just finished roasting and unloading into collection cup.
Roasted coffee is a high-speed train without brakes with regards to the chemical processes is concerned. Once you start the roast, the chemical changes never stop. Once you finish roasting there is a lot of off-gassing of CO2 at first, making it good to let the coffee sit for a day to three since the off-gassing can affect the completeness of infusion and result in a weaker cup. After that oxygen and moisture start their act of staling the coffee. Once rested, coffee remains at it’s prime for five to seven days. After that it’s considered staled – tho it will be acceptable to most of us for many days afterwards. Even staled, it’s still better than the grocery-store coffee. Chilling or freezing is counter-productive. Every time you take the bag out of the chiller to get your morning cuppa you are introducing moisture to the coffee by way of condensation. Not much stales coffee faster than moisture. So – best to keep the coffee in a dry and cool cupboard and just roast what you will consume in a week or so. Unroasted coffee lasts a very long time, provided you keep it in a cool, dry and dark location too.
Beautiful beans at Full City.
My coffee roasting night occurs after everyone has gone to bed. The wife doesn’t much care for the smell – it smells like roasted grains when you roast coffee. Not like coffee at all – that smell comes later. When I build my honey-house I’ll dedicate a corner of it to roasting coffee so I won’t have to stay up late to roast.
The first step is mise en place. I get everything out and ready. Roaster plugged in and timer set to max, scale for measuring green, and my cooling colander, stop-watch and cleaning brush. I tend to re-use the button-bags for several roasts. I don’t roast dark so it doesn’t get very oily and remains fairly fresh for several generations of coffee. But I have new bags ready if needed. And since I save the chaff from the collector to use in my potted plants, I have a zip-lock bag of that ready to receive more too.
My green coffee comes mostly from Sweet Marias. Tom is very picky about his coffee and I’ve yet to have a bad batch of coffee from him in all these years. Sometimes I’ll buy Kona from SmithFarms too – they’re one of several small coffee farmers in the Kona region of the Big Island of Hawaii and have been a great pleasure to buy from. The green comes in a ziplock freezer bag – I usually buy in five pound increments. Five pounds of coffee lasts me several weeks since I only roast about half a pound a week or longer.
A look at the heater elements - and the chaff collection tray.
I then set my measuring cup on the Salter Scale and turn the scale on to zero it out. I dole out eight ounces of coffee – 230 grams – and turn the scale off. This green coffee I pour into the drum of my roaster. This drum is returned to the roaster and the lid is shut. Then I grab my stop-watch – it’s a Radio-Shack sports stop-watch with lap capability – and make sure it’s zero’d out then I hit Start on it and on the roaster to begin the roast. When you are roasting you want to be in close vicinity to the roaster, as with anything you cooking.
I listen to the sound of the beans being rotated and mixed by the vanes in the drum, sounding almost like the regular crashing of waves on the beach. Not loud – it’s relaxing almost. Then I’ll start smelling the roast. Smell plays a big part in the roast. It’s very distinctive and as the roast progresses the smell changes. Hard to describe. Needless to say – if you carbonize your beens, you’ll know it. Anyway – for me it’s a very pleasant smell. It gets… smokier smelling, I think, as it progresses. Of course, since I roast light, it never actually gets very smoky in my house – a little but it’s not that bad. Those preferring darker roasts should have a vent running during the roast. I like lighter roasts – City to Full City+ depending on the bean – because it brings out the distinct taste profiles of the particular variety I’m roasting.
First crack is heralded by a pop. Sometimes a bean will get caught in the perforations of the drum and roast faster, so I disregard the first pop or two. When I start hearing pops close together or in clusters, I hit my timer. With my roaster, depending on the bean and level of roast, my roasts tend to go on another two and a half minutes past the onset of the first crack. Much longer and I start getting into the second-crack which I’m not generally interested in personally. Of course, if you’re into espresso, second-crack is king. That’s when the oils start to come to the surface of the bean and the coffee takes on a shiny sheen, supposedly beneficial to getting good crema on the espresso. I prefer pressed coffee personally. This is the critical part of the roast – every second counts and you have to pay close attention. When the signs come together – the time after first crack and the smell darkening, I hit the Cool button. When I do that, the heater turns off and the cooling vent opens up. I see a little puff of smoke and know that cooling has begun.
Have you any idea how hard it was to photograph this while pouring?
Then I start putting stuff up. The roaster goes into a cool-down cycle and I take advantage of that by putting up all that I can spare. Work smarter, not harder. When it’s cooling cycle is finished the roaster reverses direction and the vanes inside guide the coffee out into a collection cup. I’ll pop open the lid and shake out the last few beans from the drum. These beans I’ll pour into the colander and place in front of a fan to cool it down to room temperature. They don’t smell much like fresh-roasted coffee yet – usually by morning the smell is stronger. But the house is full of a pleasant roasted nuts or grain smell. It’s pleasant to me anyway. But it’s still quite warm and I want it room temperature before bagging up. After that, it’s just a matter of bagging it up and I’m done. Depending on the coffee, one to three days of resting are good before consuming – tho I rarely wait that long, personally. I try. I really do. But that bag of freshly roasted beans just looks too good.
Mmmmm, nice crema and yummy cuppa.
I recommend a burr-type grinder for this coffee rather than the cheap whirly-blade grinders. I ended up getting a good Gaggia burr grinder that’s served me well for nearly a decade. The whirly-blade grinders sheer the coffee, leaving smooth edges that don’t infuse as readily, and also produces an uneven grind. The burr-type grinders force the coffee between two plates that crush the coffee. This opens up the pores for a good infusion and also produces a very even grind. It is good to grind coffee right before brewing rather than pre-grinding it all. The less surface area exposed to the air the better.
I prefer the coffee press for brewing. It’s a very sustainable way to brew, if you think about it. No filter to toss in the trash. Grounds can be composted. I like it because with the level of grind I use, I get this wonderful fine “mud” on the bottom of my cup which when sloshed into suspension for that last gulp is like drinking coffee candy. The taste stays with you for a while and with this coffee, that’s a Good Thing.
This fine coffee has zero bitterness if not over-extracted, has no staleness if consumed within a week or so of roasting and stored properly, and tastes as good at room temperature or cold as it does hot. it’s taste is similar to its smell. This is what coffee is supposed to taste like. No need for diluting it with cream and sugar and drinking it when it’s too hot to taste the bitterness. Because there isn’t any. It’s more expensive than grocer coffee – but that’s not stopped me at all. I know my dollar is going to the farmer, thanks to the efforts of Sweet Marias and these farmers are woefully underpaid as it is with the fat-cats on Wall Street lapping up most of the profits for this coffee thanks to the coffee-futures that keeps the price of commodities coffee artificially depressed. At least the greens are roughly half the price that high-end roasters sell their pre-roasted coffee for – and you get to roast your own with a level of control not experienced by most coffee drinkers today.
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