Newbie Trying to Roast Coffee Beans

[joe2k1]

Hi all,

Hoping to get some advice on roasting my coffee beans. I made a few attempts using an old popcorn machine which some very poor burnt results. I upgraded to a proper roasting machine. However, I am still having trouble avoiding a dark roast (burnt) result. Any tips or advice for a newbie?

 

[TexLaw]

Tell us some things about how you're roasting? What roaster are you using? What beans are you using? What is your roast size? How are you managing the roast (heat, airflow, time)? Are you getting an even roast, or are some beans significantly darker than others? How long is your typical roast?

I don't mean to sound facetious, but the quick answer is to drop your beans sooner. If it's really burnt, it sounds like you're getting well into or even beyond second crack. That's further than most folks like it.

However, the answer could be more complex. You probably also want to decrease your heat and maybe increase your airflow earlier in the roast.

When it comes to monitoring your roast progress, the ease of doing so depends a lot on your roaster, but keep very good notes on what you're doing, including everything about what you're seeing, smelling, and hearing. Have a good timer counting up from the time you start the roast, and mark all your actions and observations by time.

In time, you likely will get a better feel for roasting and your roaster, but you'll probably mess up some more roasts along the way. Don't sweat it. Change something and see what happens. Half the fun is getting there. Keep roasting and chatting!

 

[Old Hippie]

I made a few attempts using an old popcorn machine which some very poor burnt results. I upgraded to a proper roasting machine. However, I am still having trouble avoiding a dark roast (burnt) result. Any tips or advice for a newbie?

Speaking as a guy who's been using various air poppers to roast coffee for the last 30 years, I'll say it works. I usually get about 10 years out of a popper, so it's fairly economical as well. Rather than trying to diagnose your difficulty by remote control, I'll just say what works for me and you can compare my practice to yours.

Most air poppers are built for a half-cup volume of kernels. Coffee beans act differently, and are definitely an "off-label" use of the popper. And we're gonna violate the warranty in a moment; spoiler alert.

Thing One. Your new popper has a temperature cutout because we all know some idiot will leave the darn thing plugged in until it catches fire otherwise. You're not an idiot so you can take that out and promise yourself you will always always ALWAYS be standing right there keeping an eye on it whenever you're using it. Always.

That means opening up the popper, locating the cutout, disconnecting and removing it, and connecting the wires together that used to go to the cutout. Congratulations. You've now voided a warrantee and created a fire hazard. Pat yourself on the back and have a beer. If you are not comfortable with this step, then your dedicated roaster is definitely a good thing for you.

I've had some poppers that worked just fine with the cutout in place, and one that could cut out far too soon.

Roasting coffee beans will take longer than making a batch of popcorn. The popper needs to get hotter. Since the airflow and heat are pre-set, the only two variables you have to play with are time and loading. Load is probably what's giving you poor results. Some poppers have pretty wimpy fans -- my current Betty Crocker is one. That means they're not going to have the oomph to spin up a load of beans easily, even though it may have handled popcorn. So you need to reduce the load.

This calls for observation. If the beans aren't spinning up well, the ones on the bottom will burn before the ones on the top are roasted. If you have a roast that ranges from burnt to green, that's probably your problem. Instead of a half-cup of beans, try a third-cup. That should work pretty well, and you should see a fairly even distribution of colours from brown to toast. There will be some variation, but we want the "standard deviation" to be relatively narrow.

If you're determined to roast as much as possible in each run, then start adding a teaspoon of beans at a time along with that third-cup as you experiment with the popper, until you find the amount that starts to burn on the bottom again, and dial it back. With my current one, I just shake a few beans off a half-cup and it's all good.

Air poppers don't get as hot as a roaster can, so they're good up to a medium-dark roast. You can go deeper but it takes longer. I do an air quench over a fan with the beans in a strainer, then put the popper over the fan for 5 minutes to purge the heat from the run. Then another run and so on until I've got enough.

O.H.

 

[StillShaving]

I will not call myself a coffee lover, but I will not refuse a good cup of coffee, especially when friends come to visit or take a break from work. But after I visited Turkey, I wanted to always have the same coffee at home as I drank there. It was Friedcoffee and made in turkish. Now I want to find myself a good Turk, what would you advise?

Are you looking for a specific coffee bean or place to buy roasted coffee? Or looking for a Cezve and/or grinder in which to brew Turkish style coffee at home?