Roast Your Own Coffee For About $10

So you like coffee. I'm not talking about a Venti Snickerdoodle latte, not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm speaking of a cup of coffee, that tastes like coffee. Two years ago, I was happy with coffee that I purchased at the grocery store. I thought I was getting fresh coffee since I was buying it whole bean and grinding it myself.

I couldn't have been more wrong. The coffee that they sell at the grocery store can easily be up to two months old. Even at Starbucks, or many other coffee retailers (unless you're lucky enough to be at a coffee shop that uses a local roaster), you're getting coffee that's weeks old, at best.

Why Roast Coffee Yourself?

Is it a big leap to think that coffee that's 24 hours old can have substantially more flavor and aroma than coffee that was roasted a thousand miles away weeks or even months ago? Since I've started roasting my own, I have friends that call or show up at my house with their empty containers humbly asking for a refill of fresh beans.

What if I told you that for around ten bucks, and just a little bit of knowledge, you could roast your own? You know, up until the industrialization trends of the early 20th century, everyone roasted their own beans. It's not rocket science. Oh, and its cheaper too.

There are quite a few resources on the internet showing countless ingenious ways that you can roast your own. I'll talk about the way that is perfect for the first time roaster.

Roasting Supplies:

1. Air Popcorn popper.

Don't go buy a new one. There's no need, unless you just want to. You, or someone you know, might have one of these laying around anyway. Nobody seems to use these to pop popcorn anymore anyway. I actually went to a thrift store to find mine anyway. It set me back about $2. Its important to find one with all of the parts intact, to help achieve the proper temperatures.

Just about any air popcorn popper will do, but there is one important thing to look for. Inside the chamber, the air vents MUST be on the sides, NOT the bottom. If you use one with the vents at the bottom, another thing you'll need is a fire extinguisher.

2. Green Coffee Beans.

You might be asking, " Where in the world would I get green unroasted coffee beans?" Luckily, the internet is a wonderful thing and there are quite a few websites that sell very good quality green coffee beans. My favorite is called Sweet Maria's. They're company that caters solely to the home coffee roaster. They sell blends that cost as little as $5 a pound. Stick with one of those for now, they may be inexpensive, but they're fantastic.

3. A couple of bowls, or a pie tin, or even a large cup and a metal colander.

Anything but plastic will do too. These will be used to help cool your coffee. A metal spoon is a good idea too.

Now, assuming that you have everything, here are the basics.

The first thing you want to do is to go outside, preferably near an outdoor electrical outlet. The next thing you want to do is to go back inside because you forgot to get your popper, coffee, and bowls. The reason to do this outside is because at first, the smell of roasting coffee is wonderful. Unfortunately, the smell loses its charm, and if you do it inside, it lingers for quite awhile.

Next, plug in your popper and turn it on to let it get warm. While it's warming up, scoop out about 1/2 to 2/3 cup of beans (you might want to measure the first time). An educated guess will do, but don't put too many beans in. You don't want so many beans in the popper that they can't move about freely. Too many beans will result in an uneven roast.

After a minute or two of letting your popper warm up, take the top off and dump those beans in, and put the plastic hood back on. Now for the waiting........... (assume that's about three minutes worth of periods).

After about three minutes or so, you'll start to notice a fragrant smoke, and you might even start to hear the beans crack. That's called "first crack". It's the thin outer part of the bean cracking and coming off. You'll see what I'm talking about because a little bit of it will be coming out of the popper.

Now is a good time to start paying attention to your beans, most importantly, the smells and the sounds. That's how you roast coffee, with smells and sounds. After about a minute or so, you can stop if you want and you'll have a very light roast if that's what you prefer.

If you decide to keep going (which I recommend), after that initial cracking, the sound might slow for a bit, but it will start to pick back up again, with a slightly sharper sound and a little more smoke. That is called "second crack". I wouldn't advise going too much longer than that. Second crack should happen after a total of about 5 or 6 minutes.

Stop the popper and take your beans out when they're a little bit of a lighter than you want. (Guess what, if you mess up and roast too long, you can do it all over again. No big deal. Or if you want, you can try that super dark roast, you may love it.) You'll want to dump those beans into one of your bowls (or whatever you decided to use). Cooling the beans off quickly is important, because they're still roasting because they're really really really hot.

A method I like is to slowly pour the hot beans back and forth between the two bowls, this helps cool them fairly quickly. (Don't be a smarty pants and try to cool them in the freezer, condensation will form on the beans and the water will ruin them. Nice try egghead.)

That's it! You've successfully roasted your first batch of the freshest coffee you'll ever drink. Now, you can go drink it right now, and it ought to taste great. Over the next couple of days, the beans will cure (and unload CO2), and the taste will develop and improve even a little bit more. In fact, I find it tastes best within the next 4 to 24 hours. Don't store them in the fridge or freezer, but preferably out of direct light in an airtight container of some sort.

After a week or so, if you have coffee beans left over (which I doubt), grind the beans up and make compost out of them. One great thing about unroasted green beans is that their shelf life is more than a year, easily. So you need not be in a hurry to roast it quickly.

I've since started buying my green beans in bulk, since the shelf life is so long, and I know that I'll eventually drink it. A word of warning, once you learn to do this, you probably won't want to go back to grocery store coffee!