The Roasting of the Beans

Any interest in talking about coffee?

I began roasting my own beans 5-6 years ago. I am gainfully employed by a large company and choose to work out of my home office rather than drive to an office. When I made that choice, I decided I needed to somehow simulate the "go to work" experience which had always included donating about $1000/yr to whichever local coffee emporium I could find on the way (assiduously avoiding Starbucks... they don't even call those big cups "venti" in Italy... but don't get me started).

I bought an espresso machine (Rancilio Silvia) and a whoop-de-doo grinder (Rancilio Rocky) and I taught myself to pull a mean shot. I poked around online to figure out how to get the best results (it's tricky), and of course I started reading about how store-bought coffee beans were terrible. Poor bean quality (most all of them), over-roasted (Starbucks), stale (all of them), and expensive (all of them). If you wanted a decent espresso, you had to roast your own beans, they said.

Act 1:

I bought a dinky little roaster called a Fresh-Roast and a few pounds of beans from sweetmarias.com, the best place in the world to buy green beans. At the time, the whole deal cost about $60. I was skeptical. Until I roasted and brewed a batch. It was incredibly better than any coffee I'd brewed before. And, drum roll please, it cost about half as much per pound.

Act 2:

I graduated to an i-Roast. It has a much larger capacity (a cup of green beans) and has a bit of intelligence, so you can program in a "roast curve" which varies the temperature and time to get you to roast you prefer based on the bean you're roasting.

I'm still not much of a coffee snob. I'll down a cup of boiled-down-brown in one of those Greek diner paper cups on occasion, but I have learned that coffee from Panama tastes different than coffee from Nicaragua. That the better, the fresher the roasted bean, the better it tastes with a lighter roast. And that just about every coffee maker on the planet fails to heat the water hot enough to properly brew an exceptional cup of coffee.

And finally, there's the "oh really" stuff. When I ask people how long they think it takes to roast coffee, they imagine at least an hour. It takes anywhere from 5-15 minutes. The beans lose about 15% of their weight during the process, but grow substantially in size. And... they crackle and pop just like popcorn.

Check out GrillMyBunz's profile.

	GrillMyBunz: That is why I bought the i-Roast. I figured the popcorn popper would be a mess as would stovetop. The chaff blows all over and I figured the smoke would be overwhelming. The i-Roast is actually not that big. Sort of blender sized. You can see pics online. Stands maybe 14 inches high and 6 inches in diameter. They designed a pretty efficient chaff collector. No muss, no fuss. Very little smoke if you keep the temp manageable. It's not perfect, but works well. I generally run 3-4 batches at a time (yield is about 2 lbs). I do the set and forget roast I programmed into the machine. One of the best things I did was buy a Technivorm coffee maker. It's a typical drip rig. And it's not fancy (though it is ridiculously expensive). The one thing it does that makes an incredible difference (which shocked me) is that it heats the water to something like 206 degrees which is 10+ degrees hotter than other machines. I did some reading and it seems that coffee should be brewed with very hot water and just about every coffee maker fails to get the water hot enough. And there's a thermal carafe. So, I'm embarrassed to admit I bought it, but the coffee is dramatically better, and one thing we've learned is that I do love really good coffee. Zabar's... I love Zabar's. comment left Jan 23
	Pinckney: I think one of the reasons - in addition to having several good roasters nearby - that I didn't go very far as a roaster was the air popper. It made several good batches with smarias coffe, but was just noisy and messy to use and I was too cheap to spring for something that handled the chaff efficiently. Also, the roasters either did a very small amount and that required almost daily roasting or much larger amounts. The bigger machines take a lot of space, don't they? Roasting in an open pan was fun and that coffee was some of the best I did, but talk about a mess.... That took concentration, but produced an interesting roast with some cool nuances. I haven't found a way to make coffee that I don't enjoy. I'll even drink the occasional cowboy coffee, but it isn't a favorite. I used to travel with a press, but don't use that much anymore as I read that paper filtered coffee has benefits that pressed or expressed don't. I don't really know much about why that it is or if it is even true, but it turns up from time to time in places like the Berkley Health letter. In addition to Fairway, I have Zabars in Manhattan and a little local roaster in Tarrytown that sells his stuff almost as fast as he can get it out of the roaster. I feel the same way about Whole Foods coffee. It is expensive and sort of iffy. I just won't buy Starbucks bulk coffee. It is TOOO costly for what it is and often not any where near fresh. Good coffee is like good bread and is sometimes found in strange places, but most often coffee is badly treated and misunderstood. comment left Jan 18
	GrillMyBunz: I considered doing the air popper, but was ultimately drawn to the i-Roast because it allows you to vary the time and temp. I found a roast curve called Profile 10 on some forum and liked the idea of gradually bringing the beans up to temp and controlling the roast. Honestly, I don't know if it matters. What I like most now is that I've created a couple of programs that let me set and forget the roaster. I have a Full City profile and a somewhat darker profile. I can walk away and not have to monitor it. Some would call that heresy, but I have places to go and things to do. I completely agree that if you have a local place that roasts frequently, you can get some pretty good coffee. Around here we have a Whole Foods, but... a while back they changed the sign on the bin from "Roast Date" to "put in the Bin Date". What's up with that? And, the good stuff is $12 a pound. Sweetmaria's is about $6/lb delivered and I try beans from all over the world (though my faves are Central American). It's impossible to find decent fresh beans around here for anything under $10-11/lb. Despite the previous rant, I do go to Starbucks on occasion. It's sometimes the best alternative. But I guess it annoys me that they always sound soooo cheerful (I'm a happy guy, but if I had to deal with half the customers Starbucks deals with... Mr. 1% low-foam extra-hot doppio caramel latte with soy whipped cream... I'd be homicidal), they want your to speak faux Italian (I refuse), and they single-handedly replaced the 75 cent cup of coffee with the $5 cup of coffee. Never knew about Julia, but a few of my favorite recipes are in her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book. As for the grinder, the Silvia is incredible, but temperamental. If you don't get the grind just right, you either end up with colored water or the espresso leaks out of the portafilter and makes a mess. comment left Jan 18
	Pinckney: WOOOF. Talk about coffee?! Oh yeah. I, too, think Sweetmarias the go-to place for beans. I never bought a coffee roaster, but I did make one out of an air popper that worked well enough. I still have it although I don't use it very often because I drive by Fairway Markets every couple of days and they roast coffee constantly. They sell tons of it and it is always fresh - as fresh as it can be without roasting it at home. I go through it fast, too, so it doesn't get stale. [It's fun to watch 'master roaster' Richard laboring in his loft with the big roaster and it smells way good.] This roaster blows caff all over the place and is loud enough that I am never sure I am hearing the cracks. Starbucks is okay by me. They over roast some of their coffees somewhat, but when on the road I keep an eye out for them and know where most of them are along I-95 between NY and Charleston SC. I have located a number of them on the western route, too. I like the fact that even in the rest stops Starbies is fresh and gets dumped after a relatively short period of time if it hasn't been sold. Then again, to be sure I often have a double espresso. I have an old Starbucks Barista machine that I use between pots of drip and later in the day. I got hold of a cuisinart grinder at Costco for this unit and thinks it works well enough. Did you know that Julia Childs used Gavela, the mail order coffee? comment left Jan 18

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The Roasting of the Beans

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