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Authors: Kevin Sinnott
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roasters actually seem to roast darker and then the beans lighten after roasting. How do you know what will happen? You’ll only know by experience.
The Well-Equipped Home Roasting Kit
The following tools and implements should be part of any home roasting kit:
A home roaster to roast your beans. Your choices (among others) include a manual home roaster with a crank, an air popcorn popper, or a consumer electric drum or electric fluid air roaster. (See page 60 for an extensive tutorial about selecting a home roaster.)
Green whole bean coffee to roast
Roasting log to note time, temperature, and amount and type of beans used. Once you find a particular coffee’s perfect flavor, you will want to replicate it.
A thermometer to measure the beans’ temperature. Get a digital, instant-read thermometer (and if not instant, one that works quite fast) or one with a thin, flexible probe attached to a digital console. The tip of the thermometer needs to access the roasting beans’ center. Note, inserting a thermometer is for the expert roaster only.
Digital kitchen scale to weigh your beans to ensure that you follow the amount recommended for your roaster
Dry measuring cup to use the amount specified in your electric model’s instructions
Kitchen timer or clock to accurately track how long the beans have been roasting
A set of steel colanders for cooling the hot roasted beans
Storage containers with tight-fitting lids to keep the precious beans fresh. Mason jars work well.
A powerful heating element such as a stovetop (gas) or electric hot plate (not shown)
Heat-safe gloves (or protective oven mitts) to safely handle hot beans
A fire extinguisher (not shown) because roasting fires do happen
Choosing the Right Home Roaster
There are many home coffee roasters on the market, each with its own distinctive methods of heating beans. How much do you want to roast each time? How dark to you like your beans? In the remaining pages of this chapter, we explore the various models available and offer a practical guide to using each style.
Stovetop Roasting
In a stovetop roaster, coffee is roasted in an open or special closed pan placed on a gas stove burner. The person roasting the beans manually stirs with a crank handle to evenly distribute the beans during roasting. This method requires direct contact between a pan surface and the beans. Stovetop roasting takes advantage of something you already have—a heat source. A variation of this method uses an oven pan with perforated holes.
Pros
• Long roast time. Like drum roasters, the stovetop roasters have a long roast cycle (likely the longest of all roasters), taking up to twenty minutes. This gives you a nice window and margin to stop the roast at just the right bean doneness.
• No noise. The only sounds come from the stove, the crank, and the crackling beans, which makes it easy to hear the nuanced first crack versus the faster second crack.
• Complex flavor. Longer roasts create coffee with more complexity. The stovetop roaster does this as well, if not better, than any other home method.
Cons
• Flame guesswork. At what level do you set the flame on the burner? It definitely takes trial and error. Keep track of how long it takes to roast a full cycle (anywhere from twelve to twenty minutes). Don’t count cooling time, which is not part of the roast cycle.
• Crank speed. How fast do you turn the crank? The trick is to find a speed that allows the beans enough contact with the hot pan bottom but keeps all of the beans moving. You’ll know to crank faster if you get scorched beans or if tipping occurs, in which the ends of beans turn black from too much hot surface contact.
• Inability to check beans’ doneness. Stovetop roasters (or corn poppers doing double duty) require you to open the top to check on your beans, which also lets steam and heat escape. It’s difficult to see the beans, even with the hatch open, so it takes trial and error to know when to stop
The Well-Equipped Home Roasting Kit
The following tools and implements should be part of any home roasting kit:
A home roaster to roast your beans. Your choices (among others) include a manual home roaster with a crank, an air popcorn popper, or a consumer electric drum or electric fluid air roaster. (See page 60 for an extensive tutorial about selecting a home roaster.)
Green whole bean coffee to roast
Roasting log to note time, temperature, and amount and type of beans used. Once you find a particular coffee’s perfect flavor, you will want to replicate it.
A thermometer to measure the beans’ temperature. Get a digital, instant-read thermometer (and if not instant, one that works quite fast) or one with a thin, flexible probe attached to a digital console. The tip of the thermometer needs to access the roasting beans’ center. Note, inserting a thermometer is for the expert roaster only.
Digital kitchen scale to weigh your beans to ensure that you follow the amount recommended for your roaster
Dry measuring cup to use the amount specified in your electric model’s instructions
Kitchen timer or clock to accurately track how long the beans have been roasting
A set of steel colanders for cooling the hot roasted beans
Storage containers with tight-fitting lids to keep the precious beans fresh. Mason jars work well.
A powerful heating element such as a stovetop (gas) or electric hot plate (not shown)
Heat-safe gloves (or protective oven mitts) to safely handle hot beans
A fire extinguisher (not shown) because roasting fires do happen
Choosing the Right Home Roaster
There are many home coffee roasters on the market, each with its own distinctive methods of heating beans. How much do you want to roast each time? How dark to you like your beans? In the remaining pages of this chapter, we explore the various models available and offer a practical guide to using each style.
Stovetop Roasting
In a stovetop roaster, coffee is roasted in an open or special closed pan placed on a gas stove burner. The person roasting the beans manually stirs with a crank handle to evenly distribute the beans during roasting. This method requires direct contact between a pan surface and the beans. Stovetop roasting takes advantage of something you already have—a heat source. A variation of this method uses an oven pan with perforated holes.
Pros
• Long roast time. Like drum roasters, the stovetop roasters have a long roast cycle (likely the longest of all roasters), taking up to twenty minutes. This gives you a nice window and margin to stop the roast at just the right bean doneness.
• No noise. The only sounds come from the stove, the crank, and the crackling beans, which makes it easy to hear the nuanced first crack versus the faster second crack.
• Complex flavor. Longer roasts create coffee with more complexity. The stovetop roaster does this as well, if not better, than any other home method.
Cons
• Flame guesswork. At what level do you set the flame on the burner? It definitely takes trial and error. Keep track of how long it takes to roast a full cycle (anywhere from twelve to twenty minutes). Don’t count cooling time, which is not part of the roast cycle.
• Crank speed. How fast do you turn the crank? The trick is to find a speed that allows the beans enough contact with the hot pan bottom but keeps all of the beans moving. You’ll know to crank faster if you get scorched beans or if tipping occurs, in which the ends of beans turn black from too much hot surface contact.
• Inability to check beans’ doneness. Stovetop roasters (or corn poppers doing double duty) require you to open the top to check on your beans, which also lets steam and heat escape. It’s difficult to see the beans, even with the hatch open, so it takes trial and error to know when to stop
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