by C. M. Erickson

Created on: February 02, 2009   Last Updated: March 08, 2009

Home roasting is a combination of art and science, and serves as a creative outlet for those searching for the perfect cup of coffee in the morning. With just a few pieces of inexpensive equipment and a reputable green coffee supplier, your home-brewed coffee will taste better than the coffee from the expensive boutiques, and you will soon notice more money sitting in your bank account at the end of the work week.

While there are many expensive home roasters on the market today, you can roast your own coffee for about $30 in equipment. All you need is a popcorn popper with vents at the bottom of the tube along the side walls that will force your beans to spin, not come flying out. Next you need a half-cup measure and two strainers with handles.

You can get green coffee beans from many sites on the web. They can deliver anywhere from one pound to over 20 pounds of coffee straight to your door. While the cost of shipping 20 pounds of coffee can be high, you will still save significant money over the cost of a Starbucks habit.

Once the beans of your choice arrive at your door, you simply put your popcorn popper out on your back porch, or under your oven's vent hood (turn the vent hood on, and put a bowl under the popcorn exit vent). Plug in your popcorn popper, and pour your half-cup of coffee beans in. Put the lid back on the popper.

Some people will try to tell you how long beans take to reach different levels of roast, but in truth, each bean crop takes different amounts of time. I have had some roast before I could sit back down, and others seem to take 10 minutes. This is when the art of roasting beans comes in. You must rely on your eyes, nose, and ears. I will share with you my technique.

Simply stand by and listen to your beans. You will hear nothing but shuffling beans for a little while, then you will start to hear cracks. This means your beans are entering "First crack" (I'm not kidding, it's really called that). The first crack is the beans start to change their molecular structure. They will have changed color from green to light brown. Once your beans are all they way through first crack, they will be medium brown. You will smell something like bread baking. This smell tells you that your beans are cooking.

If you like to taste the flavor of origin of your beans and do not like a harsh, bitter taste, pour your beans out now. Pour them into one of your strainers, then stand outside and dump them from one strainer into the other. Doing this will cool your beans off and stop the roasting process. It will also help get rid of any extra chaff attached to your beans.

If you like a little more kick to your coffee, leave your beans in until you hear a much more faint crack. This is called "Second Crack." At this point in time, the oils inside the beans will start moving to the surface. The beans will turn dark brown, and the smell of the roasting will shift to something more "acidic." Pour out your beans during Second Crack and perform the same cooling technique.

If you like harsh coffee, and want the gourmet beans you just purchased to taste like Folgers, keep your beans in longer until they turn black and pick up an oily sheen. This coffee is really only good for espressos, and tastes horrible when drunk like normal coffee.

You can grind your beans and make coffee right away, but your coffee will actually taste better if you let the beans sit for at least four hours. For some reason the "flavors" all mix together that way, the same way letting a steak sit or a soup simmer makes it taste better with time. Try to store your beans away from air, and use them all up within a week of roasting them. Green beans can last a year or more when stored in a cool, dry place.

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