Have you ever wondered how to roast your own coffee beans? It turns out, many people prefer to roast their own coffee beans, because they can make them fuller flavored and of course they're much fresher. If you've never tried fresh anything, you're definitely in for a treat.

Coffee beans start out green, and they can keep for a year or two in storage. When you want to roast your own coffee beans though, the roasted beans may keep for just a few days. Finding green coffee beans might be an adventure of its own, but you may be in luck if you live in an area which has many specialty coffee stores. You should also be able to find many resources available online too.

Now there are various tales on the Internet about people roasting coffee beans in various strange ways. One story for instance, explains how to use a popcorn popper to roast your coffee beans. Other resources online verify that yes, you actually can roast your coffee beans in a popcorn popper. And the process is simple, taking just a few minutes time.

Use a popcorn popper which has heat coming in from holes in the side instead of the bottom. You'll only be able to roast small amounts of coffee at a time in these, but since it just takes a few minutes for each batch it's not a big problem.

Make sure to do this in a ventilated area with plenty of light, so you'll be able to see how much your coffee beans have been roasted. Put your green coffee beans in the popcorn popper and put the lid and butter container in place, then put a large bowl underneath to catch the coffee bean chaff. Turn your popcorn popper on.

In about three minutes you should hear and see the first crack of the beans. Wait about a minute then start watching the roasted color closely. You can remove the butter dish to look inside the container if need be. Lighter roasted coffee beans only take a total time of about 4 minutes while dark roasts take just about 6. This is total time too, not just time from the start of the first crackling, so watch your roast carefully or it may come out too strong for you.

You might want to remove your coffee beans when they're still slightly lighter than you'd like, because they'll continue roasting until they're cooled. Dump your roasted beans into a metal collander, and if you have a second one on hand then dump the beans back and forth between the two to speed up the cooling process. You can also try taking the beans outside for faster cooling. Make your coffee using the freshly roasted beans and you may never go back to buying store bought coffee again.

This of course is just one of many ways to roast coffe beans. You can also roast coffee beans in a skillet, wok, or oven too. Or you can simply buy a small coffee roaster appliance if you'd prefer.