Home Coffee Roasting - How to Air Pop
So you're ready to take that step or maybe you're just thinking about roasting your own coffee. I am proud of you! Please be warned that you will likely never want to get a coffee-to-go anywhere else, but your own home. This makes it difficult if you are away from home. I usually take my bodum and my own ground coffee when I travel, but sometimes despair if I am just out for the day and have to settle for drive-thru coffee.
Safety note: do not buy the popper corn popper if it has a mesh base where the air goes through because it may start a fire. Try and find one that is about 1200 watts and definitely, use a popcorn popper where the air comes out of vents in the sides.
Things you should know about home roasting:
- Always, always, always use clean equipment. There are oils and chaff (the paper-like skin on the outside of the green bean) to consider. It will change the taste and create coffee faults if you do not.
- With the basic method of roasting there is a lot of smoke. It is recommended you roast on the porch, in the garage or have a really great vent fan above your stove.
- There will be a lot of cracking noises, this is normal.
- Get a thermometer for goodness sake!
- Ensure you have all of your equipment near you before you start. Sometimes the process goes rapidly and you may need to rescue your beans before you need to start foraging around.
How to home roast coffee:
- Use a hot air popper outside in the garage.
- Throw the green coffee beans into the air popper and watch the beans turn from green to yellow.
- Listen, this is a very important step to identify the roast you require. You will hear the first crack of the beans. This step is where the water and sugar is evaporating out of the bean and oil seeps out onto the bean.
- For a light roast you may want to stop here.
- If you like dark roast, allow a secondary crack, then smell and visually inspect the bean. The beans that are small may combust at this point.
- Fine-tune this method until you are happy with the coffee's taste.
- Invite the Coffee Bean Queen over for a great cup of home roasted coffee or espresso.
