by Katriena Knights

Created on: February 05, 2009   Last Updated: February 06, 2009

Very few people roast their own coffee beans these days, although prior to World War I it was a common practice. As commercially roasted beans became readily available, though, fewer people took the time to home roast, and now this art has become rare, particularly in the United States. It's starting to become better-known again, though, with people wanting to try home roasting for the richest, freshest possible cup of coffee available.

Roasting your own coffee is a surprisingly simple process. It takes less than fifteen minutes, and doesn't even require special equipment. Depending on the flavor you want to achieve when roasting your coffee, you can make use of various common kitchen appliances to do your roasting in.

To roast coffee, you have to start with green coffee beans. These are fairly easy to find with a little hunting. Several online retailers sell green coffee beans, with the advantage that the unroasted beans are less expensive than premium, pre-roasted coffees. You can buy everything from Kona coffee to high-quality beans from Ecuador and Brazil. Green coffee beans are much like any other bean in that they'll keep for a long time, until you're ready to prepare them. After preparation, though, they're best used within a few days for the best flavor.

Once you've acquired your beans, it's time to start roasting. The simplest, but least effective, method is to roast the beans in a pan on the stove top. While this will get your beans roasted, the results won't be uniform.

A more effective approach is to use an air popcorn popper or stovetop popper. These will give you a much more consistent roast, but will likely shorten the lifespan of your popper, since coffee roasting requires higher temperatures for longer intervals than popcorn popping.

Or, if you're really dedicated to at-home roasting, you can buy a roaster specially made for coffee beans.

Depending on how dark you want your roast to be, the roasting process can take from six to fifteen minutes or so. Also, the darker you roast your beans, the more smoke you'll produce, so be sure you have adequate ventilation. The roasting process produces chaff, which is the skin of the beans being shed. This can be messy if you're not prepared.

Once you've started roasting, you can keep track of the progress by listening. At a certain point, as sugars caramelize and moisture evaporates from the beans, they'll make a cracking noise. At this point, if you prefer a light roast, you can consider your beans done. Darker roasts require longer, though, and some prefer to cook the beans as far as the second "crack." At this point, the beans might even burst apart, leaving small pieces. In addition to these sound cues, you can also judge how far along your beans are, and when you consider them done, by their smell.

Coffee beans must be roasted at temperatures between 370 and 540 degrees Fahrenheit, and they must be in constant motion while they're roasting, which is one reason why the air popper is a good choice for home roasting and a pan on the stovetop isn't. After roasting, they must be removed from the heat and cooled quickly, or the roasting process will continue inside the bean and they'll end up overroasted or even burned. Once they're done, though, you can pop them into the grinder and the coffee maker for the freshest cup of coffee you've ever tasted.

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