Smoke! (Coffee Roasting attempt #1)

I read that coffee roasting produced smoke, but I underestimated how much! I can hardly breathe! So, today starts what I anticipate to be an exciting wing of my blog. The do-it-yourself adventure log. Today, I roasted coffee.

The coffee roasting idea came to me a week or two ago while perusing beer making websites. One site had a link for coffee roasting, and the moment I laid eyes on those words I was hooked. Since then I have

 read countless webpages and a library book. Today, I got

 my shipment of green Columbian coffee beans. A roaster out of Cleveland and a little coffee house they supply a block from our house were willing to let me buy beans directly and have them shipped piggy back for free. Coffee for $2.50/lb. cannot be beat! The best price I could find online was around $4.00/lb and that was before shipping. I feel like I should buy 150 lb. before the price goes up! Green Coffee beans will store for up to a year, so buying in bulk is a very viable option.

Today's maiden voyage will determine if it is worth building a real roaster with my handy-man of a father-in-law. The rudimentary equipment o

f the day was simply a pot with a lid. There are many proponents of the Whirley Pop method, but since we don't have one, a well agitated pot had to do the trick.  

The coffee looked amazing.  We immediately brewed a pot, in spite of the advice that coffee reaches its peak at 24 hours.  The coffee tasted like water...  I never knew coffee had "body" until I tasted that which had none!  Over time this coffee improved significantly and we concluded that it was over roasted.  We have roasted two smaller batches now, each very light roasts and blended with the original batch it is a decent cup o joe.

Andy and I heavily discussed our plans for a roaster, and my scavenging for parts has already begun.

Lessons Learned: 

-Stovetop roasting is far from ideal and will never give consistent results

-Over roasting coffee does not enrich flavor, in fact it robs it

-Cooling is essential, or else the roasting goes far beyond your hopes