Roast Your Own Coffee

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Method (Steps 6 & 7 are where the action happens)

Step 1. Measure out your beans to a half-pound and set them aside.

Step 2. Stick your popper on the stove and turn the heat on almost as low as it goes. You’re going to leave this sitting on the heat until reaches about 400ºF.  It should take about 5 minutes if you have the flame at the right level.  Faster means its too hot, slower means its too cold.

Step 3. When the temperature inside the popper reaches 400º, put the half-pound of coffee in the pot, you should see an immediate temperature drop of about  100~150º, but you don’t want it to drop any more than that.  Immediately begin cranking the handle at a quick steady pace.  You don’t need to go at it like a madman, do what feels comfortable knowing you will need to keep this up for several minutes before you can stop.  You should see the temperature start to stabilize, then increase steadily.

Step 4. If the flame is set right, first crack should hit at about 6 minutes in.  You will know when this happens, since it literally sounds like the beans are cracking.  Err on the side of caution here, too slow is better than too fast.  If its too slow, you can turn the flame up a tad and you will be fine, but if its too fast, its too hot, and your beans will burn.

Step 5. When first crack hits you should see a spike in temperature (20º-40º), this is from the gasses in the beans releasing, turn the temperature down a tad.  Remember, temperature readings will vary depending on a lot of factors. Newer pots are shinier inside and can make thermometers give inaccurate readings, also, thermometers often need to be re-calibrated, listen to your beans over your tools.  At this stage, it will probably look like the temperature has stalled, that’s okay, the temperature of the beans just needs to catch up to the temperature of the air.

Step 6. As the beans begin to warm back up, second crack will occur.  This is the critical point in coffee roasting, and sounds a bit like Rice Krispies; much softer than first crack.  For a light roast coffee you want to stop just after first crack.  Patrick feels this is too light and doesn’t give the beans a chance enhance the right flavors.

Just before second crack is called a “Full City” roast, and is considered a good medium roast.  Somewhere between the too would be a nice light roast.  For a darker medium roast, you want to stop right after second crack begins, and for any true dark roast you wait until second crack has finished.

Step 7. When your beans reach the point in the roast you are after, immediately remove the popper from the heat and dump the contents into your colander.  If possible, go outside for the cooling process, otherwise over a sink or wide trashcan.  You want to rapidly move the beans between the two colanders letting as much air pass through them as you are comfortable with.  This serves to cool the beans quickly, halting the roasting process, and to remove the chaff (light papery stuff) from the beans.

Step 8. Once the beans are significantly cooler, put them in an open container for 24 hours.  After 24 hours, move the beans to an airtight container and serve preferably before 96 hours (4 days) after roasting.  It is important not to put the coffee in an airtight container (unless it’s a roasting bag with a CO² lock).  The amount of gas the coffee releases for the first 24 hours is enough to ruin the seal of anything you put it in.  We haven’t tested it, but we hear it might even explode (probably just pop the top off).

And you’re done!  Here are a few things to keep in mind — you can definitely brew yourself a cup right after roasting, but the beans will continue to release large quantities of CO² for the next 24 hours.  This will stop the coffee from steeping properly, and will affect the taste of your brew.  When you taste it again the next day, you should have a much more flavorful cup, so don’t get discouraged if it isn’t exactly what you were after.

Freshly roasted coffee has a dramatically different taste than “stale” coffee usually purchased from coffee shops and markets.  If you are surprised by the flavors you’re experiencing, and aren’t familiar with freshly roasted coffee, it’s probably a good thing, it means you did something right, and soon you will never want to go back.

A few closing points if you really want to learn some esoteric geeky facts about coffee, or just sound pretentious at parties:

• Freezers are not the ideal storage conditions for coffee.  Condensation when you remove the beans or grinds from the freezer can harm the beans, not to mention the risk of freezer burn, and the cold does nothing to help preserve the flavors.
• Coffee should be brewed between 199º-206º, roughly just below the boiling point of water, and can be fine tuned based on a beans particular qualities.
• Bean density can alter the roasting times of your coffee.  Generally, beans from a higher altitude are denser
• 850 flavor compounds have been identified in coffee and 300 in the smell of green coffee.  To compare, only 200 have been identified in wine (take THAT wine geeks!)
• You have about 10 minutes to use ground coffee before the flavors start to dissipate, for a really good cup of coffee or espresso, grind it when you need it, and not before

Organic coffee beans growing in Cuba.

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This article was originally published in the blog Is Greater Than