Roasting Coffee in A Bread Machine
November 19, 2007
Continuing our foray into roasting, we now explore roasting coffee in a bread machine using a heat gun as our heating element. We already posted about roasting in a popcorn popper, which will yield good coffee and is a cheap way to get into roasting your own coffee. But in the popcorn popper you lack the ability to control the temperature so you cannot vary your roasting profile to tweak the flavors of all your different coffees. You are also limited to 6-8oz. of coffee per roast in the popcorn popper. Roasting in a bread machine is a little more expensive but gives you much greater control over your roast and allows you to roast significantly larger amounts of coffee. Read more
Roasting Coffee in a Popcorn Popper
October 10, 2007
Welcome Stumblers! Be sure to check out all of our posts on roasting!
With pan roasting behind us we looked forward to roasting some coffee in a hot-air popcorn popper. In fact, it was a blurb about someone trying this method that led us to create Perk-O-Late in the first place. Roasting in a popcorn popper is a quick, cheap and (very) easy way to roast your own coffee at home. Read more
Pan Roasting Coffee - Part 2
September 27, 2007
Our first try at pan roasting was a complete bust, but we had a few tweaks in mind that we thought would be crucial to improving the quality of our pan roasted coffee. Read more
Pan Roasting Coffee - Part 1
September 20, 2007
There are certainly many sophisticated methods to roast coffee. Yet, you really only need coffee beans, a heat source and something to contain it.
Stuff you need to get started:
- Cast iron skillet
- Grill
- Cooling tray or wire screen and a hair dryer with a “cool” setting
Continue reading and see more pictures after the break. Be sure to check out all the pictures at full size by clicking. Read more
The beans have arrived.
September 6, 2007
Good news! Our first batch of raw (green) beans has arrived and we’re excited to try roasting for the first time. We’d like to thank Coffee Storehouse for providing the beans.
We’ll be attempting our first few roasts tomorrow using a couple of methods: pan roasting on a grill (as recommended by the folks at Coffee Storehouse) and a hot-air popcorn popper. I also have a bread machine, which I have heard works well (with a heat gun), so we may try that also. You can expect photos and videos of the whole experience, for sure.
If you have experience with any of these methods, we solicit your advice. If not, we hope you can learn along with us! Check out Mark’s photos after the break (be sure to click on each for the full size).
Read more
Rwanda: Muyongwe Wins 2007 Golden Cup
September 6, 2007
The Golden Cup cupping competition was organized by OCIR CAFÉ and USAID/SPREAD as a way to promote Rwandan growers and roasters. The tiny landlocked African country has been ravaged by genocide and civil war for decades, but their high tropical, volcanic soil provides excellent growing conditions for quality coffees. Until recently Rwanda was an unknown in global specialty coffee but they are working to change that. Timothy Schilling, Director of USAID/SPREAD, was very proud of the event’s success and the coffee that it produced:
“I am sure Rwanda will be the best country in the whole world to export high quality coffee in the next five years,”
Schilling also believes that in the not to distant future Rwanda will offer some serious competition for established specialty coffee giants like Costa Rica, Colombia and Jamaica.
[Read]
And So It Begins…
August 31, 2007
We just placed our first order of green coffee beans from Coffee Storehouse. For our first foray into roasting we chose the Brazil Moreninha Formosa Full Natural which they describe as:
A sweet, smooth fresh Brazil with terrific body, nice fruit and just a hint of nuttiness. Great for espresso. This is a full natural coffee dried on raised African beds.
Grown in the city of Serra do Salitre, Minas Gerais, Cerrado Mineiro.
Average Altitude : 1,200 meters.
Mmm, makes my palette tingle just reading about it.
We are going to try two different roasting methods this time: hot air roasting via a popcorn popper and pan roasting using a skillet and a grill. After talking to the folks a Coffee Storehouse, we’re expecting the best results from the pan roasting. On the other hand, roasting coffee beans in a popcorn popper has intrigued us for a while now.
Be sure to check out Coffee Storehouse’s Selection!
