Give Me My Coffee - A Pictorial

Given that I'm fully 1/2 Colombian you'd think I'd have black coffee roaring through my veins. Truth is that I didn't start drinking the stuff until I was well out of college and into the working world. I still don't drink very much because I have to limit my caffeine intake out of respect for my wife (who I can keep up till 4am after an afternoon cup or two). Despite my lack of consumption I've come to appreciate a really good cup of joe.

That's why I leapt at the opportunity to have my friend Craig show me how to turn raw green coffee beans...

...into dark brew-ready beans.

The idea of roasting your own isn't exactly new, and as I've come to learn it's actually pretty easy. Roasting at home has obvious advantages as far as freshness is concerned, but the biggest advantage for me is that green beans keep for far longer than roasted beans. I don't keep coffee around the house because it's lifeless and dead by the time I get to drinking it (usually when company is over). This method is also cheaper and more interesting. Craig pointed me to Sweet Maria's, an online coffee encyclopedia and store. They have a wealth of info on roasting your own and sell a pretty daunting selection of raw beans.

Craig uses the "Air-Popper" method, which leverages a popcorn popper to roast the beans in a jet of hot air. Due to the obnoxious smoke emitted from the roaster he does this outside with the lid off.

Here's Craig swirling the popper around to help the fan circulate the beans. This keeps the bottom beans from burning.

After a few minutes, we get to the "first crack", which sounds a lot like popcorn. The beans will pop and expand, while emitting a stream of chaff. Here are the beans right before the first crack.

There's an intermediate period as the beans continue to roast, then the "second crack" begins. We roasted our beans just until the second crack started, resulting in a "full city roast".

The next step is to quickly evacuate the beans to two sieves and toss to cool. Craig wants to mod his popper to have two switches, one each for the fan and element. This would allow him to quickly cool the beans in the roaster without tossing. It also would prolong the life of the popper (he's already on his second one).

The first picture in this post doesn't give a great indication of the expansion of the beans and dramatic color change. Here's a better shot.

Then it's a short rest (12 hours) to let the CO₂ from the roasting leech out of the beans. Total time from popper-on to rest, no more than 10 minutes. This is something that can be done the afternoon before so you can have uber-fresh roasted coffee the next morning.

The nuances of roasting your own are considerable, as if making a fine whiskey or roux. Sweet Maria's has an excellent tutorial on roast times, temperatures and resultant roast qualities. We made two batches. The first was a full city roast, which had no bitterness and a very light flavor. The second was a French roast, which had a more pronounced nuttiness and a hint of bitterness.

The final step? Grind and roast. The resultant coffee was stupendous, worthy of being consumed without cream and sugar adornment. For this occasion I pulled out my favorite mug, a bad-ass Jesse Ventura gubernatorial campaign mug I snagged at a white-elephant exchange a few Christmas' ago.

I passed over several tasty gifts in order to snag this priceless piece of American political history - and I've never looked back.

Coffee is point-free if you drink it black (which this coffee is good enough to). However, given it's joyfully abundant caffine, be sure to drink an extra glass of water during the day.