In order to authenticate your experience, you'll have to post pics of the cat.
Just found another almost new West Bend Hot Air Popper while thrift store spelunking yesterday. Took it home and loaded it up with some Kenya AA beans. Evidently it runs much hotter than my older West Bend popper because within 5 minutes it reached second crack and was putting out enough smoke to set off the alarms and the toy fox terrier! I shut it down and cooled the beans as quickly as possible. I prefer a Full City roast but I popped one of these oily dark beans into my mouth to test it and it tasted rich and flavorful, a nice dark French roast. This morning I will grind some up and put it in the French press. Maybe I will become a dark roast enthusiast.
I haven't modified the popper at all. I have two of them. The one pictured runs hotter than my first and roasts the beans about twice as fast. If you decide to try one of these machines you'll obviously need to experiment with roasting times.Hey Rich..
did some research on the hot air "roasters"....
Have you modified yours in any way?
or do you use it "as-is"?
Some of the creations I ran into were VERY complex.
Not sure I'm ready to go that far.
Cool idea if I can just but one and start roasting.
Thanks for the tip John. I'm definitely going to experiment with the on/off idea.I use a similar 1200watt popper, and early on discovered that if I turned it on and let it go 'until done' it would do a very poor job. I ruined a fair amount of coffee until I learned to slow down the roasting process.
I turn it on, 45sec, off 15sec for the first two minutes. Then on 30sec, off 30 sec. I stir frequently. A half-cup batch of green beans takes 7 to 8 minutes to city roast, (past first crack and not to second) depending on bean type. The results are much more satisfactory. I don't roast very dark; the lighter roast that results is much more flavorful. Of course everyone's milage varies.
I found that if I was just pouring the heat to the beans, they could turn to 'over-done' very rapidly. So I adopted the on/off routine above.
-- John Gehman
Thanks for the tip John. I'm definitely going to experiment with the on/off idea.
Does your popper have the side airvents like the West Bend that I'm using?
Thanks John !!
I am starting my quest for a popper this week.
Any vendor you would recommend to buy GREEN beans from ??
I checked out Sweet Maria's website......there is A LOT of info there !!
There was only one popper at my local wal-mart. The side air vent is the key, not the brand?
Also, the batch size should be 1/2 cup with quite a bit of experimentation with respect to time etc. for the raost.
Do certain types of beans work better for this method than others?
Cordially, Bradley I plan on saving alot of money, just like my DE shaving