Roast our own coffee

[Stachebound]

Thought I'd share as a new member that we started home roasting coffee last year. You can use a whirly pop popcorn maker or an air pop or a wok even. We have a little drum roaster that we love. Most of our coffee is $5-6 per pound green and is fantastic and fresh.  We drink less coffee now and almost never buy at coffee shops. I figure this alone saves us about $50-60 per month.

Plus, it's really fun!

[kevin78]

I've been pan roasting coffee at work since I run a hotel kitchen I'll roast coffee in a pan when I have some time.  Its nice because of the high-btu stove and the commercial ventilation.  I can roast a lb. at a time.  Pan roasting is usually the hardest and worst way to roast coffee but I've become quite good at it. I even won a prize in a home roasting contest with one of my roasts back in March.  It was a medium roast ethiopian blend.  This method is very economical for me since I usually buy 6-8 lbs of green coffee at a time from Sweet Maria's. 

The green beans store alot better than roasted coffee.  I was reading that George Howell stores all of his green coffee in a deep freeze and that it preserves the freshness for even longer, but I don't know how long, but I've heard he has excellent results.

One thing that is overlooked with coffee roasting, and even Tom at Sweet Maria's makes this claim, which I don't agree with, that coffee is best 4-24 hours after roasting and fresh for only 5 days.  Coffee is flat tasting until a few days after roasting, and then develops over a couple weeks and the flavor improves and changes, and then at some point the coffee starts to decline.  Its due to the CO2 off-gassing that occurs, which at first is very heavy, and seems to taper off over a couple weeks.  Its pretty cool actually, if you store your fresh roasted coffee in a sealed mason jar, you have to burp the lid to release the pressure and its makes a thump.  You can tell when the off gassing is done because it won't build pressure in the jar any more after days.

Also you can store fresh roasted coffee in the freezer and it works great and allows you more flexibility in maintaining coffee freshness since you can roast alot at once and then not feel that you have to drink it all before it starts to go stale.  Degassing is supposedly slowed in the freezer.  Either way I have been freezing coffee and it tastes just as good after a month in the freezer as the fresh stuff. In fact, better sometimes because you know the coffee is fully degassed.  Most roasters over on places like Home-barista forum don't touch the coffee for at least 2 days because the flavor won't be good until then.  My theory is that the co2 emanating from the ground coffee interferes with the ability of the water to extract coffee solubles effectively during brewing.

[kevin78]

Thought I'd share as a new member that we started home roasting coffee last year. You can use a whirly pop popcorn maker or an air pop or a wok even. We have a little drum roaster that we love. Most of our coffee is $5-6 per pound green and is fantastic and fresh.  We drink less coffee now and almost never buy at coffee shops. I figure this alone saves us about $50-60 per month.

Plus, it's really fun!

Home roasting is great.  Its amazing how much better coffee can be when you home roast and then perfect whatever brewing method you use.

[Stachebound]

Yes! We buy everything from Sweet Maria's too and live near their warehouse, so frequently just pick up our orders.

We brew with a chemex or clever coffee maker.

I love Ethiopian by the way! Just roasted some Yirga Cheffe yesterday along with some Tasmania Peaberry, which was delicious today even though just roasted.  I usually can't wait more than 2-3 days to drink them LOL.

[kevin78]

Near Sweet Maria's... awesome.  They used to be in Columbus but that was before I was here. 

As far as the rest period stuff is concerned, thats the great thing about coffee is every day you get to try it and see if and how the flavor changes/develops, and perfect it!  I think the chemex or your c.c.d. or any other pour over brewer is a quite Mustachian coffee method, since you don't have to waste anything more than what you want to consume (which you would never do since you roasted the coffee yourself)

I had to break my espresso machine habit so I switched to pour over and initially wasn't impressed with pour over brewing until I took the time to learn how to do it properly.  Now I think it is amazing and economical way to drink great coffee.  I could never again drink gas station swill coffee full of crap robusta blends. I've been working on making the perfect cafe au lait that can go toe to toe with a standard espresso based latte in terms of taste.  It is not easy because the brewed coffee flavor isn't usually strong enough to cut through the milk.  I've been compensating by updosing the coffee and grinding it quite fine.  My main goal is to have no reason to need an espresso machine since I don't like straight espresso and I'd only use it for cafe americanos and the occasional latte.  People spend thousands and thousands on grinders and espresso machines and I started buying into that mindset.  I embarrassed to say how much I spent on different gear and then ended up selling it at a loss.

Now I'm down to a simple Baratza Encore grinder, a bonavita pour over kettle, and a beehouse and melitta dripper.  I'm trying not to buy any more coffee stuff.   

[Stachebound]

Yes, they moved to West Oakland CA.

Pour over is the only way to go....

For espresso, you might try some of the Espresso blends SM has, grind fine, and use a ccd with extra time or French press and add steamed milk. I find the ccd to be the highest quality brew for me and I can usually get it much stronger.

[kevin78]

Yep, I definitely would like to pick up a clever coffee dripper, maybe I'll get one sometime.  I think its a great idea.

[SnackDog]

While you are at it, stop putting sugar/chocolate/sweeter and/or creamer/whitener/cream/milk in your coffee.   These make it more tasty and more fattening.  It will be easier to drink and you will drink more.  Leave these out and just have black coffee.  When you realize how bitter it is, you will reduce your consumption drastically and switch to alternative beverages. This is better for your health and your pocketbook.

Try it!

[kevin78]

While you are at it, stop putting sugar/chocolate/sweeter and/or creamer/whitener/cream/milk in your coffee.   These make it more tasty and more fattening.  It will be easier to drink and you will drink more.  Leave these out and just have black coffee.  When you realize how bitter it is, you will reduce your consumption drastically and switch to alternative beverages. This is better for your health and your pocketbook.

Try it!

Or, just drink quality coffee and then you can drink it black without needing to add sugar.  Good quality coffee tastes drastically different than the common swill coffee like Folgers, etc.

[Stachebound]

While you are at it, stop putting sugar/chocolate/sweeter and/or creamer/whitener/cream/milk in your coffee.   These make it more tasty and more fattening.  It will be easier to drink and you will drink more.  Leave these out and just have black coffee.  When you realize how bitter it is, you will reduce your consumption drastically and switch to alternative beverages. This is better for your health and your pocketbook.

Try it!

Or, just drink quality coffee and then you can drink it black without needing to add sugar.  Good quality coffee tastes drastically different than the common swill coffee like Folgers, etc.

So true! And I find you only need 1 cup to feel satisfied.

[nktokyo]

Wow great idea.

I stopped buying coffee in cafes and brew mine all at home now but this is awesome.

[Stachebound]

Nktokyo - try www.sweetmarias.com to get started.

[nktokyo]

Thanks! The "Tokyo" in my handle is there by design, I gotta do some more research on this in Japan.

[Random]

Although it may not make sense to source beans and equipment from Sweet Maria's if you live in Tokyo, the web site is still a treasure trove of information on home roasting and well worth a visit.

[jba302]

Any roaster recommendations? I live in a condo so I need to have something I can move outside, lest I smoke out the entire facility. Pretty sure I can even get the wife on board with this one pretty easily since she has been liking the $14/pound redline.

[kevin78]

I'd suggest a popcorn popper to start with.  They are cheap enough to try your hand at coffee roasting.  This is available at Target and it can be rewired to get some control over the roasts if you are handy,  theres a thread about it on sweet maria's forum http://www.amazon.com/West-Bend-82416-Crazy-Popper/dp/B0036WS1GY

 If you want to spend some money,  you might try http://www.sweetmarias.com/sweetmarias/coffee-roasters/air-roasters/freshroast/sr500.html

If you want something more pricey, maybe go with http://www.sweetmarias.com/sweetmarias/coffee-roasters/drum-roasters/behmor.html

And if you want the prosumer roaster get a hottop roaster.  That may or may not be mustachian.  I don't know if that is justifiable purchase. http://www.sweetmarias.com/sweetmarias/coffee-roasters/drum-roasters/hottop-roaster-basic.html

[Random]

I have a Behmor 1600 drum roaster purchased from Sweet Maria'a that is easy and reliable.  I got  $10 air popper from ebay a few years back and sused that with great results for 2 or 3 years.  In some ways you learn more about varying roast levels with a popcorn roaster because you have to monitor more closely and can easily over roast if you don't pay attention. 

[jba302]

So doing some quick math, we go thru about 27.5 pounds of coffee a year with the daily espresso/cappuccino's (which was a "I can do this shit at home, quit buying this stuff at the coffee house" negotiation purchase). At $14/pound for roasted and $7/pound for green, that would be a savings of $180/year giving some headroom for electricity use. That's a hell of a good savings to justify the behmor. I don't know if I could convince the wife of a 4 year investment in a coffee roaster let alone myself. I'll probably go with a popcorn popper to start and see how it goes now. Thanks guys!

[Random]

I got my first roasting set up (popcorn popper) and green beans when my daughter was about a year old.  She was a terrible sleeperand my wife and I were sleep-deprived zombies with zero time or bandwidth.  When told that I decided to get into home roasting, my wife asked politely what the fuck in god's green earth made me think this was actually a good idea???????  I don't recall what my totally lame reply was.  I do know that three days into home roasting, my wife said, "You know we can never go back to the other stuff."

[Stachebound]

Random, I have the same Behmor roaster and love it. We will NEVER be able to go back to buying roasted beans, the quality is so much better. Plus I find that we really enjoy trying out new things and roasting for friends.

Just roasted some more Papau New Guinea this morning and it smells awesome!!

[Riceman]

Any roaster recommendations? I live in a condo so I need to have something I can move outside, lest I smoke out the entire facility. Pretty sure I can even get the wife on board with this one pretty easily since she has been liking the $14/pound redline.

The Behmor, which others have recommended, has a smoke suppressor that works well.  When roasting, I open a window or door to the outside, disable any smoke detectors in the immediate vicinity, and it works fine, even until Full City or light Vienna roasts.  I didn't have a working fan on my range, but if you have a decent one of those, you can likely place the whole machine onto your range, turn on the fan, and roast there.

Average cost per pound roasting this way is 6 - 7 dollars, so you save about 50% compared to buying pre-roasted coffee (12-14 dollars a pound).

[kevin78]

Just to add, a pound of green beans doesn't equal a pound of coffee.  I think you lose a couple ounces after smoke and moisture loss. not a big deal, but does increase the per pound cost slightly.

[Riceman]

It varies based on how long you roast, which makes sense if you think that moisture in the coffee is gradually evaporating. You also lose the husks on the outside.  For a normal (Full City) roast, the number I've heard is 10% weight loss from green to roasted coffee.

[Random]

Even with the weight loss, still a great bargain.  And, as noted above, the quality difference is significant.  I also think there is value gained in participating more closely in and learning about how one of the major food groups is made.