How to Roast Coffee Beans at Home
Home-roasting coffee beans might not be your first thought when considering improving your coffee drinking. However, it can have plenty of advantages over buying ready-roasted beans or ground coffee.
In this guide, we’ll cover how to roast coffee beans at home, along with whether it’s worth the extra steps.
Home Roasting Coffee – Is it Worth it?
Roasting coffee at home doesn’t need to be complicated. That said, it definitely takes more time than buying roasted coffee or ground beans. So, what are the advantages, and do these make it a worthwhile process?
Well, the main advantages are:
- Freshness. You can’t get much fresher than the beans you’ve roasted yourself. This makes a massive difference to the quality and aroma of your cup.
- Flavor. The obvious advantage to freshness is better flavor – you get to taste the coffee how it’s meant to be.
- Control. Equally, controlling the roast level impacts the flavor. You can move from light through medium to dark, which affects the sweetness, smokiness, and complexity.
- Caffeine. Caffeine levels are also affected by the roast. Lightly-roasted beans have more caffeine, so you can mix it up as needed.
The bottom line is that roasting coffee isn’t for everyone. After all, you can get some pretty great coffee in stores, and it takes quite a while for them to go stale enough that it impacts the flavor.
But if you’re a coffee aficionado, home-roasting coffee is the next natural step in perfecting your cup.
Downsides of Roasting Coffee
It’s worth noting that there are a couple of downsides to home roasting coffee. First, it takes time. You’ll obviously batch-roast coffee, but it’ll always take longer than using ready-roasted coffee.
Also, there’s a high startup cost if you want the proper kit. Over time, it can work out cheaper than other coffee options, but it’s worth noting the initial expenses can be quite a lot.
How to Roast Coffee Beans
Before jumping into the method, let’s cover the equipment you’ll need. There are plenty of options if you don’t fancy buying a proper coffee bean roaster.
Equipment for Home Roasting Coffee
- Green coffee beans
- An electric bean roaster or
- Stovetop popcorn maker or
- ven and baking tray
An oven is the cheapest option but is also the least consistent. An electric bean roaster will give you the best control over temperature and airflow, giving you more consistent results. Also, they usually come with extra features, such as a stirring paddle and chaff separator.
A stovetop popcorn maker can be a good compromise. You can fit larger batches of beans and have more control over the temperature.
Choosing green coffee beans is harder than ready-roast coffee. The aroma isn’t helpful, so look for online vendors that describe the resulting taste and aroma for a better idea of what you’re buying.
Coffee Roast Guide
1. Decide on Your Equipment
The first step is to choose your roasting method. The instructions below focus on oven roasting and stovetop roasting. It’s not worth explaining the instructions for an electric bean roaster, as these have timed settings that take out pretty much all the work.
2. Prep Your Beans
For oven roasting, spread your green beans in a single layer on a baking tray. For a popcorn maker, simply fill the chamber with enough green beans.
You’ll want to use double the number of green beans than you want in roasted coffee. This is to compensate for water loss, which can be as much as 50% of the weight. For 1lbs. of roasted coffee, start with 2lbs. of green beans.
3. Heat Your Oven
Set your oven’s temperature to 250 degrees C (480F). You’ll want an oven thermometer for this to ensure you maintain the correct temperature – don’t rely on your oven’s setting. Give it at least 10 minutes to preheat, but longer is better.
Put your tray of beans in the oven and close the door as quickly as you can. Keep an eye on the thermometer and adjust the oven as needed.
4. Watch the Beans
Stir the beans every few minutes. You’ll need to find the balance between enough stirring and opening the door as little as possible. For a small tray of beans, you can expect roasting to take between 10 and 13 minutes.
If you like a light roast, remove them after about 12 minutes. The beans will be a light peanut color and should smell of hay. No caramelization will have occurred, so the color will still be light. Leave them in if you want a darker roast.
5. Listen for the Crack
Eventually, you’ll hear a cracking sound. This is the beans’ skins breaking due to them shrinking. It’ll be pretty obvious. Removing the beans at this stage will result in a medium roast.
If you want a dark roast, you’ll have to wait for the second crack. At this point, the roasted coffee will be as dark as you could want it. Bear in mind, though, that the beans will continue cooking for a few minutes after you remove them from the oven, so keep them in for around 18 minutes or so.
For a stovetop popcorn maker, the steps are basically identical. The beans will still crack and roast in the same way. Timings should be the same, provided you’ve maintained the correct temperature.
6. Remove the Chaff
Pour the beans into a metal colander and agitate to remove the papery chaff. It should fall through the holes, leaving you with freshly roasted coffee.
Leave to cool for an hour or so and then put the beans in an airtight container.
Final Thoughts on Home Roasting Coffee
Any coffee roast guide will tell you that this is a mix of science and art. If you’re really serious about home-roasting coffee, you’ll want an actual bean roaster.
But if you fancy just trying it out, roasting coffee is possible with domestic equipment. Just bear in mind that you don’t have as much control over the evenness and resulting flavor.
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