Well having officially run out of all the beans I’ve been given, it’s back to roasting my own coffee for the time being.
I seem to waver on and off between roasting my own and buying beans from others. I find my own technique doesn’t produce the results as well as the beans I buy from local roasters (well mainly 5 Senses). This could be due to the fact that I’m using an IMEX CR-100. A tiny popcorn popper style roaster that has neither the thermal stability nor the capacity to roast coffee the way it needs to be. If you’re not a purist though, it does a reasonable job, and I am officially the hardest person to please with my own efforts.
The upside to it though, is that I have full control over how my coffee turns out, and can take all the credit when I make someone a delicious espresso or latte on my silvia (espresso machine) :)
So here’s a quick video I pulled together of me roasting some coffee at home. It’s not particularly exciting, but some of you who have never seen what green coffee looks like before may find it interesting.
The coffee blend I used was:
Indian Tiger Mountain A – 60%
PNG Sirehini – 30%
Costa Rican Tarrazu – 10 %
Sorry for the crappy audio/blair witch cameratography/random merengue tracks playing in the background.
You wouldn’t believe how much I laughed when I put those titles and credits on the video. Apologies to anyone who has multimedia skills… Making dodgy videos is just too easy these days.
Smells like fresh coffee! heheh I’m slowly drinking through the cosecha de oro entrants and I am amazed at how bright these coffees are. I need to get in to blending. I haven’t sat down long enough to think on the subject much *adds it to his gtd inbox* well I won’t forget it now.
You should tell us your times for your roasts and you’re reasoning behind choosing and timing like you do. That’s always a good personal process.
I’m taking my new heat gun and skillet down to Charleston next week and will be roasting on the beach hehe.
Roast on!
-a
Cool, that’s the same motivation I had to buy a roaster. Actually, I didn’t – birthday gift, but anyway, it turned out to be nice. I used it once at college and it set off a fire alarm, they evacuated my whole residence hall :-P
Needless to say, next time I put it by the window with the fan helping to evacuate the room. Funny how that smoke builds up on you like that…
I’ve tried roasting with a popcorn machine, but apparently I’m roasting for too long: I still haven’t made the time to get back on the horse, so to speak. How long between first and second crack with that roaster and those beans?
Hey guys, I was hoping noone would out me on giving up my roast times… Mainly because I am terribly lazy from keeping track of them, and my reasoning for blending and roast times is highly arbitrary.
This blend I pulled together because I like the robust base of the indian tiger mountain, the sweet acid of the PNG, and the brightness of the Costa… I take most of my roasts to just at the point of second crack to try and retain the majority of origin quality without leaving it underdone, which has led to sour/grassy shots in the past. I find if i stop just as the first few pops of second crack are starting I get a nice balance of origin character to coffee flavour.
The IMEX is a nice little machine to play around with, but I’ve needed to mod mine with aluminium foil to trap more heat in the system, or else it just never makes it to second crack. So with these little mods, on this partiuclar blend, first crack was around 7 1/2 minutes, with second crack coming at about 10 – 11 minutes.
If i had something a bit more sophisticated I might be inclined to keep a proper log of my roasts… but I am heinously slack when it comes to record keeping… Plus over analysis removes that element of alchemy that makes it so much more rewarding when it comes out good :)