Diane wrote:Fishin', how do you roast your coffee? How long, how dark, do you stir it while it is roasting, etc.?
Tell all, please.
I use an old hot-air popcorn popper.
There are dozens of WWW sites that cover the "how to" aspect of it, I was a little intimidated by the idea at first but it is really a lot easier than it sounds.
The hot-air poppers force enough air though the system to keep the beans moving around so you don't have to do any stirring. I roast to a Medium-dark or "full city-roast" level. The first batch (you can roast about 1/2 cup of beans per batch in my popper) takes just over 7 minutes. Subsequent batches take less time since the popper is already heated up. As soon as the batch is done I dump them into a large baking pan so they can cool quickly (if you don't do this they retain enough heat that they continue to roast themselves a bit more until their temp drops.)
Roasting produces a bit of smoke so I try to do it outside as much as possible (otherwise the smoke detectors go off!
) and I roast up a pound or so each time. Takes about 45 minutes to roast an entire pound. Then I let them sit for a week in an air-tight canister before using them. Their flavor builds during the first few days after roasting.
You can find a lot of places selling green beans on the web. I buy 25lb bags so the price drops down to about $4/lb for Columbian Supremo beans which is about 1/2 the current price of low end ground coffee (Folgers, Maxwell House, etc..) in local supermarkets.
