Coffee-Home Roasting (the other green bean)

[WadePatton]

Now that I'm ready to order some beans. Please suggest your fave mail-order bean sources. So far I like Sweet Maria's and Coffee Bean Corral, BUT holy guacamole how do you select a bean?!

Methinks most of the pre-roasted stuff I've ever drunk has come from South and Central Americas, but I'm quite interested in the wide wide palette that is now open before me.

Be gentle. Just as you don't start a non-wine drinker's education with a Big Cab (no matter how wonderful it may be), I suspect that I don't need to dive into complexities and nuances that I'm not ready to appreciate-nor foul up great beans with amateur roasting. I've scored a lot wines (went through a viticulture and oenology stage), but never cupped a coffee.

I expect to be using a Poppery or similar for the roasting.

I'll probably start with Sweet Maria's sampler pack(they choose-and). Or I can get 1/2 pounders from CBC.

Ethiopia, New Zealand, Java(!), Indonesia, Hawaii, Bolivia, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Congo, Papau New Guinea. etc? a bit confusing. Pick a continent and work down to sub-regions/climates? hah?

Whilst there are some snobbery coffee shops down in Nashvegas, I avoid cities except for NAHBS--and I will have my eyes open there for edjava-cation.

[we'll be moving the previous coffee threads into this section in the next day or so.]

[maunahaole]

I don't roast. However, These folks have sold me green beans in the past. Some of you lucky bastards have had some of it, you know who you are.

Kona Coffee Company at Kona Lea Plantation

[Nathanrtaylor]

Wade, it works, but there are limits.

Give it a try in a wok or a sauce pan if you have one, so you can really watch the process happen and stop anywhere you want to take a sample out. Keep the beans moving and have a metal colander or steamer basket handy to cool them quickly. When they expand and slough off the husks it will make a mess. It's worse with an air popper. I'm sure you've already read about all of the first and second crack stuff.

The limits inherent in this process is that you can't do large batches and small ones don't have the kind of volume to spread out the heat evenly. It's really hard to get a truly even roast like the guys with the multi-pound-at-a-time gas roasters can. That said, a batch of home roasted, degassed beans ground and made into a cup of coffee is like brewing your own beer. Cheaper, easier than you'd think, harder than you'd think to get it perfect, and worth trying.

[Steve-O]

I been roasting with a modified 1500W Poppery Popcorn Popper for several years. I buy mostly from Sweet Marias as I enjoy their ever changing selection. Deans Beans is also good but less selection.

One thing you'll notice is that the popcorn poppers run at one speed. There is no temp control. This means that the first 1/4 cup roast goes slow as the machine warms up. The next couple of roasts will get faster and faster since the machine is now heated up. For a beginner, oftentimes you'll tend to roast the beans too quickly. The outside will roast quicker then the inside of the bean thus you'll get a bit of grassy flavor in the coffee. Its not bad but something that you'll come to notice over time. You can slow down the roast by cutting out sections of the popcorn popper body to add more cold air flow. Also a longer power cord will add more resistance thus slow down the roast slightly. Roasting outside on a cold day will slow down the roast vs. roasting in the middle of summer (this is a good thing as you'll appreciate the better coffee roasts in the cold months!).

A good place to start might be Ethiopian or Kenyan Peaberry beans. They are smaller beans thus they fully roast quickly and tend to eliminate the grassy flavor that you might get in a a bigger bean. Roasted right, these beans tend to have a lot of varied flavor. I normally use beer as an analogy. A good Ethiopian roast will be like a hoppy beer with lots of floral accents. A Costa Rican or Colombian bean might be more like a nut brown ale....

Final note, I roast mostly on sound. With some practice it gets pretty easy to detect the first crack and the second crack of each roast. Long ago I experimented with kitchen thermometers but had little luck getting consistent readings.

[WadePatton]

yeah, I'm not so much asking about the process-more about how to SELECT from the multitude of bean options.


i hate to do this but i quote me:

Now that I'm ready to order some beans. Please suggest your fave mail-order bean sources. So far I like Sweet Maria's and Coffee Bean Corral, BUT holy guacamole how do you select a bean?!

and why wouldn't you preheat the popper for consistent times? i don't need much, the dogs don't care for java. i've already been playing with pre-roasted beans in the skillet.

i don't drink coffee every day, but when i do...i like for it to be interesting.

as for beer analogies. I'm _not_ a hop head. Too much hops goes through my head like horseradish. I'm sure I enjoy much more hops than the Miller Lite Tailgater, but then i've brewed. I'm into malt and heavy thick and chunky chewy beers...porters and stouts and ales OH MY! But also i do enjoy a grassy green pinot grigio when appropriate. dzat help?

I'm looking for a way to relate what the sellers say to regular joe-six-pack language. do i start with Africa or Indonesia or Colombia? or one of the other 37 places of origin? what to avoid? what ain't worth the premium?

[stackie]

Wade,

I think we (the coffee geeks) need to know how you extract coffee from your beans. If you are going for espresso, SM has a drop down choice that allows you to select "only coffees recommended for espresso". Otherwise, pretty much anything is going to be fair game. If you are brewing french press, I would recommend a nice Guatemalan to start, or maybe a Costa Rican coffee. I'm partial to Brazilians (coffee!- you pervs) as they make an excellent base for espresso, but they also work nicely for a simple brewed cup. If you prefer a bigger, earthier cup with the more strange flavor notes such as leather, tobacco, etc, then a Ethiopian or Indonesian might be your style.

A bit of unsolicited advice. Make sure you know what you are doing with brewing coffee. If you're pouring this coffee through a Krups pour over, don't bother. If you are going to the effort of roasting your own beans, make sure that you can control the temp of your brew water to within a couple degrees of 200 F. Some of those pour overs are generating 160F. Your coffee will taste like poo. I highly recommend french press at a min. Boil the water and wait for it to cool to 200 with a thermometer. press, and decant the coffee immediately into a carafe. Chemex is a good economical way to control temp on a drip style coffee.

I'm going to stop before I write a treatise. But, one last rec. Only buy coffee from Thom at Sweet Marias. Not because he's my cousin ( he isn't ), but because he cares more about coffee than anyone I have ever met. His customer service is par excellence. His descriptions of the coffee are amazing. His contributions to coffee production are endless. He is the MAN in green beans. I don't even look anywhere else, except "shrub" which is his wholesale site for those who are buying 30lb min bags.

Jon

[WadePatton]

Thanks Jon,

I use a press, never decanted. Thom has a sampler, i'll get that. Love to support huge customer service and have already learned lots via his work.

[Steve-O]

Stackie's got it... The Guatemalan and Costa Rican beans from Sweet Marias have been my last two purchases. A lot of the Sumatra beans always have a heavier "nutty" flavor which might fit good with the porter/stout analogy...

The cool thing about coffee is that you can buy a couple of pounds for very little $$$ and teach yourself what you like.

As for the the actual brewing of the coffee, I would go with an Aeropress or Chemex. Both options are much better then machine brewed coffee....

[LarryA]

Nice job Josh!

[Too Tall]

Thanks maaaaaan :)

Two days ago I finished up the Columbian beans and went for it. Roasted 1.5 lbs in one shot to 29 min. before I heard the right sounds and smells.

FWIIW The beans are good to use in 24 hrs. but honestly maybe it is my imagination that they are alot better after three days.

These columbian beans are so good I've ordered 10 lbs more.

[Too Tall]

aaaaaaand I had my first fire. Got distracted talking to Mrs. TT and heard FIVE smoke alarms go off!!! Good to know that our hardwired smoke alarms are functioning I suppose. Thank goodness for high wrist silicon mitts. Everything is ok, no damage. The beans actually look really good...ouch.

Well, one more pound of coffee in the bin. I'm learning.

[rwsaunders]

I showed my better half your setup and she said that the Queen is not only a Queen but she is a Saint as well. Keep roasting for the fan club!

[Too Tall]

I showed my better half your setup and she said that the Queen is not only a Queen but she is a Saint as well. Keep roasting for the fan club!

No kidding. I'm a handful.