Discover the Pleasures of Home Coffee Roasting

More and more coffee lovers are discovering one of the most elemental pleasures of coffee making: brewing coffee from freshly ground whole coffee beans that they roasted themselves.

Home coffee roasting helps deliver the maximum flavor to your cup of coffee. It also makes it possible for you to tailor your coffee bean roast to your precise liking. And it offers surprising economical benefits as well to devoted coffee drinkers.

Buying Green Coffee Beans

Those economical benefits begin with the purchase of green coffee beans for home coffee roasting. These can sell for as little as half the price per pound of roasted whole bean coffee, especially when they are bought in bulk quantities. And, unlike roasted coffee beans, which diminish in flavor fairly rapidly over several weeks, green coffee beans keep for far longer, as coffee's volatile flavor compounds only develop through the roasting process.

Some specialty coffee retailers, especially those that roast their own coffee right on the premises, will sell green coffee beans, though you might have to ask the owner or manager. Better still, look for green coffee beans via the Internet, where many reputable companies offer them for sale.

Home Coffee Roasting Equipment

Start looking and you'll find a surprising number of home coffee roasters available for sale. Some cost little more than a few pounds of roasted coffee beans and many more selling for a hundred dollars or more depending on their volume and complexity.

The simplest and least expensive models rely on a stovetop burner or outdoor grill for their heat source and your own hand power to keep the beans moving and circulating regularly inside as they roast. More complicated home coffee roasters have thermostatically controlled electric heat sources and move the beans with a rotating drum or chamber, or with a powerful fan that also circulates the heated air. (Some coffee lovers who enjoy experimenting have had success achieving the latter effect with less expense by devoting an electric hot-air popcorn maker to the coffee roasting process.)

The Home Coffee Roasting Process

Whichever home coffee roasting equipment you use, follow the manufacturer's instructions for the best results. But also keep the following general description of the coffee roasting process in mind.

At first, as the green coffee beans begin to warm, they'll generally give off a pleasant grassy aroma as they change in color from green to golden. After 3 to 10 minutes or so, depending on the type of beans, how they'd been processed, and the roaster you're using, the beans will start to give off steam, which will begin to smell more and more like coffee. Then, you'll notice wisps of fragrant smoke, followed by a soft crackling nose that might remind you a bit of the sound of popcorn; known technically as pyrolysis, this is the actually popping of the beans, during which they expand slightly in size and begin to undergo more dramatic chemical changes that develop coffee's familiar flavor.

From this point on, pay careful attention to the coffee beans to watch for the color changes that indicate they've reached the degree of roasting desired. (See Coffee Roasts to help you judge.) Stop roasting when they're slightly lighter than you want them, as residual heat will continue to darken the beans. Finally, cool the beans quickly by emptying them into a metal colander held over the sink to catch any chaff from the beans. You can grind and brew the coffee beans as soon as they've cooled, although their flavors will continue to develop slightly over the next 4 to 24 hours.