How do you roast?

Pan Roasting

How do you roast your green coffee beans?  I am not looking for the procedure.  I'm not looking for what machine you use.  What I mean is, like, how much do you roast at a time, and how many different varieties of coffee do you roast at a given time? For me, I usually roast about twice per week, sometimes only once per week.  I roast small quantities, usually 1/4 to 1/3 pound of any variety.  If it's a coffee that I have a large stash of, then I will do up to a half pound on a single roast. Why such small batches?  For a couple of reasons: I find it easier to control the roast process when I roast only a very small batch … [Read more...]

Ugly, but hopefully delicious

Yirg Roast on March 31, 2009 - Ugly but delicious

Last month, I got my first Ethiopia Yirgacheffe green coffee beans.  Ethiopia is the place where coffee was "invented," so I was looking forward to enjoying some wonderfully delicious coffee. Well, as you know if you read this site, I am pretty new at coffee roasting, and specialty coffee beans in general.  When I roasted the yirg beans, I thought I did an OK job, given that it was only about my 3rd or 4th time to ever roast coffee.  I e-mailed a photo of my roast to my best coffee buddy, Bobby.  Here is a picture of my initial roast: Well, Bobby e-mailed me back and told me that the roast was "ugly."  As I scrutinized the picture, … [Read more...]

Coffee Roasting 101

Greens

This morning I roasted some coffee beans.  You may be wondering what I am talking about.  You see, I purchased some green coffee beans, beans which have never been roasted before, and I roasted them in a pot on the stovetop. There are a lot of better ways to roast coffee beans, but I am a bit of a simpleton when it comes to coffee, and I enjoy pan roasting.  You can do a better job with commercial roasting equipment, but pan roasting is fine for me, for now anyway. If you like coffee, but have never roasted your own beans before, you probably don't know what coffee really tastes like.  The coffee you buy in the grocery store was … [Read more...]

Roasting session this morning

Roasting green coffee beans

Well, this morning I did some roasting of green beans.  I guess I usually roast about twice per week or so.  Today is Wednesday and I roasted two different varieties of green beans today. First, I roasted some Natural Yirgacheffe Worka beans that came from Ethiopia.  I got these beans from my Sangay, Bobby Timonera.  Bobby bought these through GCBC, but he didn't like them as much as some other varieties of beans, so I bought them from him.  These are some excellent beans that I really enjoy.  The roasted beans have a combination of a fruity and spicy flavor, which I really enjoy.  My first attempt at roasting the beans, I thought … [Read more...]

How was the taste?

coffee-beans-jeff-kubina2

Remember last week, I wrote about a roasting that I did on some Yirg?  It was ugly, but I was hoping it would be delicious.  Well, I am happy to report that on my fourth roasting attempt, I was finally able to reproduce the delicious Yirg results that I got the first time I roasted it!  After going too light, then too dark, I finally hit it right on! Unfortunately, that was a small batch that I roasted, though, and I've already drank all of it!  You see, I was tired of wasting good coffee beans when I wasn't doing a good job of roasting, so I decreased the batch size until I hit on the proper results!  And, I did it! Like I said, those … [Read more...]