Best coffee is always fresh coffee! Roasted coffee beans starts to loose its freshness after 1-2 weeks. After 2 weeks your coffee starts to loose its aromatic flavor, even it’s package is not opened. For this reason roasting your coffee at home is a perfect way of getting always fresh coffee. With little practice, you will learn how to roast coffee beans at your home with popcorn machine. As a result, after a few try you will find your best roast level and you get best fresh coffee at home.
There are a few way to roast coffee beans at home.
- Roast in the oven
- Roast with pan
- Roasting with home type coffee roaster
- Roasting with Popcorn machine
Roast Coffee Beans with Popcorn Machine!
Roasting coffee with hot air popcorn popper is very easy and convenient. Learning curve of using popcorn machine as coffee roaster is highly strait forward. For this reason, after a few try you will have experience for getting light roast, medium roast or dark roast coffee. Everything is in your hand! Likewise you can roast any type of roasted coffee you like with a regular popcorn machine!
What You Will Need?
Hot air Popcorn Machine
– If you don’t have one, you can easily find a hot air popcorn machine in any online store. You can review popcorn machines and get one. It is usually cheap and 20$-25$ price range. I have a great hot air popcorn popper, Breville Party Time Popcorn maker. Breville is a famous and perfect Coffee Machine maker. Once upon a time Breville was making Popcorn makers. But unfortunately it is currently not available. However, it is not a problem, any cheap hot air popcorn machine will work.
Unroasted Green Coffee Beans
– Usually cheaper than roasted coffees. Around 25$ for 5 Lb. There are plenty of unroasted green coffee beans @ AMAZON. Brazil, Guatemala, Colombian, Sumatra and so on. I prefer Colombian, but most of the others are just find. You can (I think you must) try as much as raw coffee beans. Every coffee has its own characteristic aromatic flavor! Worth try.. By the way, if you are brewing mostly espresso coffee, you can try Robusta coffee or Robusta-Arabica blends.
-
Airtight container (Optional)
– Although airtight container is optional, it helps preserving the tasted of coffee beans after roasting.
Roasting Raw Coffee with Popcorn Machine?
Roasting coffee beans will produce some smoke and coffee particles as exhaust. I like that smoke but it is a good idea to roast coffee beans in open area, if possible. (at balcony or garden).
Step-1
– Turn ON your popcorn maker for 20-30 seconds for pre heat.
Step-2
– Add around 50-75 grams of unroasted coffee beans to popcorn machine. Don’t add too much. Popcorn’s vessel is usually small. If you put too much coffee, they will not rotate freely and roast evenly.
Step-3
– Watch your coffee beans. Your popcorn machine stirring your beans with hot air. This evenly distribute hot air and roast your beans equally. This is very important. It is very hard to get that even distribution with pan or oven! After 1-2 minutes your green coffee beans start to turn from green to brown. At the beginning, it was light brown and as the time goes, its color gets darker.
Step-4
– Listen for first Crack. After 3-4 minutes, you will hear first “crack”. This indicates that your beans lightly roasted. If you like “white coffee” you must terminate the process and go to Step-6.
Step-5
– Listen for second Crack. After additional 1-2 minutes, you will hear second crack. This indicates that your beans are medium roasted. Color of the beans must be changed to brown. Usually it is time to terminate process. If you want dark roasted coffee, you must wait a few more minutes but be careful! You coffee beans may burnt and become unusable!
Step-6
– Transfer you roasted coffee to a metal container and let it cool for 12 hours. Meanwhile CO2 gas will release.
Step-7
– Grind and brew you coffee after 24 hours. If you will not use after 24 hours, it is a good idea to store your roasted coffee in an airtight container. Airtight containers will help maintaining your coffee’s aroma for long time.
Is it Worth Roasting Coffee Beans at Home?
Actually depends on how much coffee you need. In a regular coffee bean roasting at home with popcorn machine, you get around 30-40 grams roasted coffee. This is actually very little amount. You can brew about 4-5 cups of espresso (or its derivatives). If you are brewing that much amount coffee in a day, you can insist on home roasting. But if you are consuming much more, home roasting might be hard for you.
Instead of popcorn machine, you can use a pan for roasting coffee at home. By pan, you can roast about 200-300 grams of raw coffee at a time. This is much more efficient than popcorn machine. On the other hand, roasting with pan is difficult than popcorn machine. Also, in pan roasting, it is difficult to roast all the beans equally, which is very easy with popcorn machine.
Verdict
Roasting coffee in your home is actually is not something difficult. Hot air popcorn popper is a good device to roast coffee beans at home easily. Alternatively, you can roast your coffee simply by a pan or in your oven. But in both cases you will have custom roasted coffee which is made by YOU! Feel free to play with roasting time. You may find great tastes. In addition, I’m sure that you will like the smell released from roasting coffee. It is really wonderful smell for a coffee lover 🙂 I think a home roasted coffee might be great gift for your friends because it is made by YOU!
Pingback: Siemens EQ 300 Review | IZREVIEW Trusted Reviews