I was watching this TedX talk that my cousin in Portugal forwarded to me. It was about how roasting your own coffee leads to a far better tasting coffee that keeps its vitality for about a week. I became a little obsessed about trying to roast coffee at home!
So, I did some research on the different ways to roast coffee at home and found out that using an air popcorn popper works fairly well. I’ve got one of those!! So, I went online to find some green coffee beans to roast and bought Stone Street Colombian Supremo from Amazon. I also bought some coffee bean storage bags with the degassing one way valve.
When they arrived I got out my air popper and followed directions from some online resources to hopefully get some delicious and nutritious coffee! I started outside because I read there would be a lot of smoke created. I placed 3 ounces of the green beans in the popper and started it. Oh boy!! The air pressure on this particular popper is very high! I started losing a bunch of the beans as they were blown out of the popper and on to the table and floor! I tried to somehow cover the opening while stirring the beans but I didn’t have good way of doing it while not burning my hands with the extremely hot air (up to 460 degrees F). I got through the the full roasting time (5 minutes) but I lost about half of the beans in the process. I pulled the beans a little to early so the roast was lighter that I wanted it to be. They need to be cooled quickly and stored for about 12 – 24 hours to “degass” the beans.
The next morning I grounded the beans and made a pot with my auto-drip maker. It was…okay…at best; The flavor was a little flat. I was expecting more but I definitely should have roasted them longer.
I was lying in bed, trying to solve the issue with losing so many beans. I suddenly thought that using aluminum foil shaped like a cone, and placed in the popper would stop the beans from flying out. I was right!! It worked!!
The problem, however, was the heat was trapped by the aluminum and the roasting process sped up. The beans roasted about 1 and a half minutes quicker than I read they should. I’m not sure if that faster roasting would affect the quality of the roast. The beans looked and smelled amazing! I was just hoping that they would taste just as good as they smelled.
The next morning I grounded the beans and made another pot. It turned out… better than the first batch; Not life changing. The coffee was dark and had a smokey taste. It was smooth but the flavor, once again, was a bit flat. I’m not sure if the quicker than recommended roasting gave the beans enough time to develop their flavor. I’m no expert so I’ll be doing some more research and maybe even get a real home roaster. My curiosity has been ignited and I’m enjoying the process!!
I will continue to hunt for the perfect cup of coffee!!