Coffee Roasting Guide - Step-by-step guide to roasting at home

Roasting coffee at home is becoming increasingly popular. The basics of home roasting are the same no matter what method you use. Most methods are simple and produce a better cup of coffee than you have ever tasted. Keep in mind that roasting will continue until the beans are cool so remove from the heat a little lighter than you want the coffee to ultimately be.

Air roasting, or the fluid bed method, is a method of roasting green coffee beans using hot air. It takes under ten minutes and there is virtually no chance of scorching the coffee. You will need a special 550 degree thermometer to maintain a consistent temperature while the coffee beans are roasting. You can roast beans in a hot air popcorn popper easily.

Add about 2/3 cup of green coffee beans to the popper and place a large bowl under the chute, just as if you were popping popcorn. Flip the switch and turn it on. In about three minutes you will begin to hear a "crack". This is referred to by roasters as the first crack, where the coffee beans begin to actually roast. From this point you will want to monitor the beans carefully for color to be sure that you don't allow them to scorch.

A light roast will take a total of about 4 minutes while a dark roast will take about 6 minutes. The roast will develop very quickly so watch carefully.

Remove the beans from the popcorn popper and allow to cool in a colander, stirring with a wooden spoon and moving the beans constantly to cool them quickly.

Sweet Maria's recommends the following three popcorn poppers for coffee roasting because the air enters from side vents (using a popper where the air enters from the bottom can cause a fire); West Bend Poppery 2, Popcorn Pumper, and the Popaire 2.

Skillet roasting requires even less equipment that the popcorn popper method but it is easier to end up with scorched beans or an uneven roast.

This is going to smoke so have the fan on and the windows open! Put a heavy pan on the stove.Turn the stove to medium heat and put the lid on. If you have a oven thermometer set it inside and heat the pan to 500F. Remove the thermometer, pour in about 9 ounces of green coffee beans and put the cover back on. Begin to shake the pan and keep the beans moving as they roast.

Listen carefully for the first crack. Check color quickly ever minute by lifting the lid and taking a look. Check the beans after about 5 minutes to check the color of the roast - it should be dark.

Pour into a colander and cool, stirring as above.

To oven roast the beans preheat the oven to 500 and place a heat proof colander with the beans inside on the middle shelf. Oven roasting of the beans is a little slower than other methods so it will take about 5 minutes to get to the first crack. Keep checking the beans, they should start to color in about 2 more minutes. Be sure to open the oven and shake the beans to keep them roasting evenly. Beans should be roasted after about 12 minutes. You may need to turn the oven up to 525 if they are roasting too slowly.

Using a coffee roaster is a more consistent way to get perfectly roast coffee without scorching.

The i-Roast2 is under $200.00 and allows you to roast your coffee using a system of programmable stages to get the exact roast you want. It is considered the most advanced air roaster on the market.

With it you can have up to ten memory functions, and up to five stages in the roasting process. There is a chaff collector that automatically collects the chaff that is accrued during the roasting process. With the touch pad you can adjust the temperature during the roasting process for an extreme amount of control over the roast. If you just want to keep it simple there are two basic controls, one for light and one for dark roasts.

It will roast up to 1 cup of beans at a time, taking about twenty minutes each time. You will need to allow the roaster to cool between batches if you will be doing more than one batch at a time.

The Gene Cafe Coffee Roaster has a tempered glass drum design which allows you to view the beans as they roast, giving you an easy visual indicator of the degree of roast. You can make unlimited changes during the roasting process for time and temperature. Because of the drum and the inner vortex feature the beans tumble as they roast and air circulates around them creating conditions for a very even roasting process.

The Gene Cafe Roaster has a large capacity for a home roaster, you can roast up to 10 ounces of beans at a time. It is more expensive than the i-Roast, averaging about $500.00.

The Nesco Professional Home Coffee Roaster is the only home roaster on the market with a patented catalytic converter smoke elimination system. Because the roasting process does create smoke this is a great feature. Beans are kept moving in the chamber by the auger system for consistent roasting.

Roasting time for the Nesco is about twenty five minutes including cooling times. The Nesco produces an excellent light roast coffee but because the cooling fan is not as powerful as it could be darker roasts are not as high quality as with some of the other roasters on the market. It costs about $150.00

The green, or unroast, beans can come from many parts of the world and each type will differ in character from the others. Even similar coffees grown on different plantations will differ in taste.

You can best store your unroasted coffee beans in a cool dry place with low humidity. If possible store them in a material that breathes. The green beans will pick up flavors around them so keep away from strong scents and flavors like onions or spices.

The type of beans that you use will make a difference on the taste of your coffee. French Roast Ethiopian beans will taste different that French Roast Arabica beans. Blending and roasting are past of the process, and the fun, of roasting your own. Here are the roasts from lightest to darkest.

Cinnamon Roast- lightest roast, little visible oil.

New England Roast- very light roast without much body

American Roast- light roast, often used when cupping the coffees

Medium City Roast- popular roast on the west coast. Chocolate colored

Full City Roast- Medium dark roast. Oils begin to form on the beans. This is where the character of the beans and where they originate are more obvious.

Vienna Espresso Roast - a dark roast the character of the coffee and where it originates is less apparent and the flavor of the type of roast becomes most apparent.

French Espresso Roast - most popular espresso roast. Dark brown beans with very apparent oil.

Italian Espresso Roast - Darkest roast yet, with oily appearance and chocolaty taste

Spanish Espresso Roast - The very darkest roast, a robust coffee. Thin body, little character.

The point of blending coffee is to produce a higher quality cup than you could wiht a single type bean. In order to successfully blend your own you need to know something about the different types of beans and what each variety has to offer to make the blend unique and, hopefully, delicious. Single origin coffees that are well done don't necessarily need to be blended, individuality occurs in the combination of origin and roast.

Blending is easiest if you are experimenting, when done after the individual coffee beans are roasted and you have cupped the beans as a single origin coffee. Your goal should be to create something that cannot be created in a single origin brew, after you have become thoroughly familiar with the characteristics individual beans. As a rule, you should not blend more than five different types of coffee beans together as the taste becomes confused and muddywith no distinct characteristics. Think of it as sticking a paint brush into each color and mixing the paint until you get a muddy gray- brown.

Cupping is the process of coffee tasting, similar to wine tasting. It is a great way to experience the differences in flavors of the coffees you roast and to learn more about them. The following is the basic cupping process:

1. Prepare a scent sample by placing about 10 grams, or about a teaspoon, of fresh-roasted, ground coffee in a cup that holds 6 fluid ounces.

2. Smell the aroma being released from the sample to evaluate the dry aroma.

3. Pour nearly boiling water over the ground coffee.

4. Smell the aroma from the cup immediately after adding the hot water. cup your hand over the cup of coffee to intensify the aroma.

5. Let the sample steep for 3 to 5 minutes and then stir.

6. While stirring, take a deep sniff to evaluate the wet aroma.

7. Skim and discard the foam from the surface of the coffee.

8. Take a spoonful of coffee into your mouth and slurp it to spread the fluid evenly across the tongue and into the back of the throat, covering your entire palate as much as possible.

9. Hold it in your mouth for 3 to 5 seconds and then spit it out.

10. Move your tongue across the roof of your mouth to evaluate texture.

If you are going to the trouble of roasting your own coffee beans consider the higher quality of fair trade and organic coffees. By buying these coffees you are merely paying farmers who grow higher quality coffees what they are worth. Here are some terms that you may come across in your quest for the perfect coffee:

• organic- coffee grown without the use of chemicals or pesticides
• shade grown- also called bird friendly. This means that the coffee plants are grown in such a way as to protect the habitat of the birds in the area. It often tastes better as well.
• Fair Trade-Fair trade coffee, also called equal exchange coffee, is coffee that is traded by bypassing the coffee trader and giving the producer higher profits. Fair trade certified coffee does not necessarily mean that the extra money trickles down to coffee farmers, but it is a start.