Of coffee roasting that is.
When I first read about roasting your own green coffee beans I was intrigued. My first reaction was "well, how hard could it be? Just heat them up, toast them or whatever and you are done right?"
I was actually pretty far off. Roasting beans, like making bread, cheese, or making wine is almost a creative art form. And to make things a bit more interesting, roasting times vary depending on the bean you are roasting and how you typically like your cup of coffee.
As time goes on you do get better and better at it but there is a bit to learn ahead of time.
Now, let me just say, this process is not so difficult to learn. Even for someone completely new to it. We have yet to have our beans that are roasting catch on fire and we have been roasting our beens since December. We have had smoke alarms go off in the house but we've just gotten around that by moving the Roaster outdoors.
One of the most useful things you can do besides deciding on what kind of roaster to purchase and then deciding on what kind of beans you would like to try would be to simply familiarize yourself with many of the terms that are used in roasting your own beans. As I do reveiws you will hear me mention terms like "first crack" or "second crack" or even "Full City" or "Italian or Espresso roast".
So, I have posted here, a link to where you can read more about the different stages of roasting as well as what to expect during roasting.
Another great way to familiarize yourselve with the process of roasting your beans is to simply pick up a book from Amazon.
I will try to put a video here and there as we roast beans, but unfortunately I do not own superior video equipment so the quality won't be that great.
So stay tuned and reviews on our most recent purchase will be following shortly.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Lets start at the beginning, shall we?
About two years ago, after learning a pretty valuable lesson about money and how we had none, we started to make a few cuts, financially.
We had just moved from Alaska to Maryland due to the military and had about every little thing you can imagine could possibly happen to us financially. End result? Empty savings, empty checking, no food, and we still had loads of bills to pay every month.
We, I guess, were the typical low to middle class American consumer living from paycheck to paycheck, trying to make ends meet and not really succeeding.
But then we started turning things around, bit by bit.
We learned how to garden. We joined a CSA (community shared agriculture). Then we cut off our cable tv and switched to Roku.
Next, we started trimming here and there. We took a real hard look at where we were spending and starting chopping little things out. Of course, our grocery bill was always the biggest area on the pie chart so we became determined to try to chop that down somewhat. It is really hard to do that though. No matter how much you cut coupons, no matter how much you watch for sales. It seemed as if no matter what we did, our grocery bill stayed the same.
Now, you might be asking, "why am I reading this on a coffee and tea blog? This has nothing to do with coffee or tea!"
Well, it just so happened that late last year I discovered that buying green coffee beans, fair trade in bulk can save a massive amount of money!
Purchasing green coffee beans in bulk not only saves money but the coffee also stays fresher therefore ensuring a more delicious cup of joe!
So here you go, purchase green coffee beans in bulk, store them in containers, roast as needed. Relatively inexpensive and absolutely delicious coffee.
Interested yet?
There are several sites one can purchase fair trade green coffee beans from as well as roasting supplies but so far we have found we like Sweet Marias the most.
I have links over to the side here on this blog with other vendors one can purchase beans and supplies from.
Now, if you do decide to take the route of buying and roasting your green coffee beans then next, you'll have to think about a roaster. There are basically two types of roasters one can use for roasting beans at home. There are Drum roasters and Fluid bed roasters.
Drum Roasters work by simply laying the beans down on a flat bed and then tumbling them around a large drum to roast them. Fluid bed roasters on the other hand work simply by using hot air temperatures of about 400F or higher to just simply roast the beans.
I have heard of some that use a popcorn popper but from what I've read, you can get some mixed results with this. Beans catching on fire is not unheard of with this method if not watched constantly during roasting.
The top of the line Hot Top, programmable roaster can set you back about $1200. This is a Drum roaster that has just about every bell and whistle out there.
That was a bit too rich for our blood. Go down in price some and you'll find the Behmor 1600 coffee roaster. This, like the Hottop is also a Drum roaster. At $299.99 and then free shipping if you are Prime with Amazon it wasn't a bad deal at all. The plus on this one to me is it produces very little smoke during roasting.
I almost purchased this one however right before I made the purchase my husband just happened to get a speeding ticket that cost $150 to get out of. There goes the money for that!
So in the end, we settled on the FreshRoast SR500. This one currently is sold out at Amazon however it sells at Sweet Marias for $169.00 This one is a fluid bed roaster that is pretty good for basic home use. It is meant for 1 to 2 coffee drinkers in the house, which fits us and so far the only negative I have noticed is it does produce smoke during roasting. We have had to move our coffee roaster outdoors when we are roasting beans because it sets out smoke alarms off all around the house.
Once you have decided on which roaster to purchase you get the delightful opportunity to shop for your beans! Now, keep in mind. Green coffee beans store for much, much longer than already roasted beans so if you are thinking of stocking up plenty of beans in case you can't get any later you can do this with no worries. Already roasted beans lose their true flavor fast so it's best to only roast what you need to keep you in fresh coffee beans for no more than a week.
Over time I will be putting reviews of each kind of beans we have purchased along with price, and best of all a review of what we thought about each variety of bean as well as what we think about roast times for each one.
We had just moved from Alaska to Maryland due to the military and had about every little thing you can imagine could possibly happen to us financially. End result? Empty savings, empty checking, no food, and we still had loads of bills to pay every month.
We, I guess, were the typical low to middle class American consumer living from paycheck to paycheck, trying to make ends meet and not really succeeding.
But then we started turning things around, bit by bit.
We learned how to garden. We joined a CSA (community shared agriculture). Then we cut off our cable tv and switched to Roku.
Next, we started trimming here and there. We took a real hard look at where we were spending and starting chopping little things out. Of course, our grocery bill was always the biggest area on the pie chart so we became determined to try to chop that down somewhat. It is really hard to do that though. No matter how much you cut coupons, no matter how much you watch for sales. It seemed as if no matter what we did, our grocery bill stayed the same.
Now, you might be asking, "why am I reading this on a coffee and tea blog? This has nothing to do with coffee or tea!"
Well, it just so happened that late last year I discovered that buying green coffee beans, fair trade in bulk can save a massive amount of money!
Purchasing green coffee beans in bulk not only saves money but the coffee also stays fresher therefore ensuring a more delicious cup of joe!
So here you go, purchase green coffee beans in bulk, store them in containers, roast as needed. Relatively inexpensive and absolutely delicious coffee.
Interested yet?
There are several sites one can purchase fair trade green coffee beans from as well as roasting supplies but so far we have found we like Sweet Marias the most.
I have links over to the side here on this blog with other vendors one can purchase beans and supplies from.
Now, if you do decide to take the route of buying and roasting your green coffee beans then next, you'll have to think about a roaster. There are basically two types of roasters one can use for roasting beans at home. There are Drum roasters and Fluid bed roasters.
Drum Roasters work by simply laying the beans down on a flat bed and then tumbling them around a large drum to roast them. Fluid bed roasters on the other hand work simply by using hot air temperatures of about 400F or higher to just simply roast the beans.
I have heard of some that use a popcorn popper but from what I've read, you can get some mixed results with this. Beans catching on fire is not unheard of with this method if not watched constantly during roasting.
The top of the line Hot Top, programmable roaster can set you back about $1200. This is a Drum roaster that has just about every bell and whistle out there.
That was a bit too rich for our blood. Go down in price some and you'll find the Behmor 1600 coffee roaster. This, like the Hottop is also a Drum roaster. At $299.99 and then free shipping if you are Prime with Amazon it wasn't a bad deal at all. The plus on this one to me is it produces very little smoke during roasting.
So in the end, we settled on the FreshRoast SR500. This one currently is sold out at Amazon however it sells at Sweet Marias for $169.00 This one is a fluid bed roaster that is pretty good for basic home use. It is meant for 1 to 2 coffee drinkers in the house, which fits us and so far the only negative I have noticed is it does produce smoke during roasting. We have had to move our coffee roaster outdoors when we are roasting beans because it sets out smoke alarms off all around the house.
Once you have decided on which roaster to purchase you get the delightful opportunity to shop for your beans! Now, keep in mind. Green coffee beans store for much, much longer than already roasted beans so if you are thinking of stocking up plenty of beans in case you can't get any later you can do this with no worries. Already roasted beans lose their true flavor fast so it's best to only roast what you need to keep you in fresh coffee beans for no more than a week.
Over time I will be putting reviews of each kind of beans we have purchased along with price, and best of all a review of what we thought about each variety of bean as well as what we think about roast times for each one.
Enjoy!
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