A Nice Cuppa

…between dark roast and fire.

These were the first words I read as I opened up my new Fresh Roast Plus home coffee bean roaster and started looking through the directions. I have to say, this gave me pause. I wanted fresh roasted beans, but I really didn’t want to burn my house down. If you had gone through the number of tea kettles I’ve managed to burn through (well, I can still count them on one hand), you might have packed it right back up into it’s shiny box and sent it back. I, however, was on a mission and decided not to let a little thing like inadvertent arson slow me down.

The key to home roasting is NEVER, EVER leave the room while it’s going on. You need to be there to watch the beans, smell the aroma (or, more bluntly put, smoke) and hear the cracking. It takes, at most, about 7 minutes for a beautiful full city roast in my roaster so it’s really not long to wait.

The roasting itself is brain-dead simple. Just measure out two scoops of beans (don’t overfill or you’ll get fire), put them in the roaster, plug it in (I always unplug after I use it), and set the timer to 6 or 7 depending on desired roast. The fan will start whiring, and the beans will start popping. It’s kind of satisfying to watch as they turn from a dull greyish green to a rich chocolatey brown. Once they are done, and it’s gone through it’s cool down, simply remove the top from the roaster (your machine instructions may vary slightly), and dump out the chaff. I’ve found that different beans give off very different amounts of chaff, but it’s always important to clean it out after each roast. The roasting canister itself doesn’t really need to be cleaned (again, follow the directions on your machine). Just empty the beans into a wire strainer, and shake them a bit over the sink to knock out any remaining chaff. I let the beans cool completely, and then bottle up the batch in little square spice jars, like these:

“Glass Spice Jars” (Organize-Everything.com)
One square jar typically holds almost exactly one batch from my roaster. Label Once labels work particularly well on these, and let you record the bean type, roasting time and date of the roast, so you can distinguish between the beans and then erase it when you are ready to jar the next batch.

Beans should sit at least 48 hours before using, and the 3rd and 4th day seem to be perfect. You should use the roasted beans the same week you use them.

Before I jump into reviews of particular beans (like this fantastic Honduras Fabio Caballero from Sweet Maria’s), it’s worth noting a few reasons why you might want to start roasting your own beans. If you have a good coffee shop around that roasts locally, you may not see the advantages… but trust me, it’s worth the fire hazard risk.

Mainly, it’s about the freshness. It’s not that the beans you get from your local cafe aren’t fresh… it’s just that how quickly do you really go through a half-pound of whole beans? Towards the end of the bag, they are no longer their best, even if you store them perfectly. Roasting your own ensures beans at their prime every day. You can buy the green beans in bulk - they keep in the green state much longer than roasted beans.

It’s also cheaper. Unroasted beans cost about 1/2 of what roasted beans cost. The home roasters themselves are also reasonably priced. You don’t really need to go big unless you want to roast for your whole block. Sweet Maria’s has a great starter set with eight 1/2lb bags of green beans for just $82.50 ($72.50 without the beans)… or you can go really low tech with the WhirlyPop!

It’s also quite entertaining to watch. You can amuse the kids for hours!

There are a ton of places to order green beans online, but I’ve also heard rumors that Whole Foods carries a few as well. I’m still making my way through the original 4lbs that came with my roaster. More on those next time!