I’m Hooked!

Hooked!

One of the most memorable scenes in cinematic history is Tony Montoya is finally hooked on cocaine in Scarface. In an earlier post, I mentioned that the best business model for converting coffee drinkers into drinkers of quality specialty coffee is the drug dealers’ model – give away free coffee, after a week they’ll be hooked.

Well last week I found myself in Tony Montoya’s place. I was out of coffee. I threw away my 8 O’Clock coffee. I was out of good specialty coffee – not even Starbucks. I did have a little bit of my friend’s Maxwell House coffee – which I mentioned in an earlier post, he said to throw away. We I poured the Maxwell House in to my french press. I then had to warm up half a cup of milk to put into my travel mug, before pouring in the Maxwell House from the french press. I thought it would be bearable. Ugh! My stomach could not take it – even with all that milk!

I recently heard that my brother-in-law is as ruined as me.

Roasting with Guy @Home – It finally works!

Nostalgia Electrics Hot Air Popper

I finally found a popcorn popper that roasts coffee beans well. After my failure at my brother-in-law’s, I was still on a mission to make it work for me. Earlier in December, my mother sent a popcorn popper to my kids. Not knowing what roasting coffee would do to the popper, I was hesitant to use it. After popping with the cheap Chefmate popper, I realized that the popper is not really hurt at all. So grandma’s popcorn popper was fair game. It is also from Target – Nostalgia Electrics Hot Air Popper – $39.99. More expensive than the Chefmate – but at least it works.

I poured the beans in. Turned the popper on. Started a timer – counting up. I kept a cool cookie tray nearby to pour the beans in and oven mitts, just in case. At around 4 1/2 minutes, the beans began to pop – first crack. At 5 1/2 minutes the first crack was in full swing. By 6 – 6 1/2 minutes the cracking stopped. The beans continued to swirl in the popper, getting

Home Roasted Coffee - Success at last!

darker and darker. My experience at my brother-in-law’s taught me to not be so impatient. Wait until it is dark enough. Waiting to 10 minutes gave a nice darker roast. I’ve done it a number of times since – stopping as soon as 8 minutes, giving a medium roast; and as long as 12 minutes, giving a dark roast.

Success at last!

2nd Try at Roasting in an Oven, This time @ Brother-in-law’s

MY BROTHER-IN-LAW’S OVEN–The next morning, I woke up with coffee roasting on my brain. Everyone was asleep. After watching my brother-in-law roast with his convection oven, I thought, “Let’s give the conventional oven one more try. If I can roast the beans to the same extent that my brother-in-law did, but just roast at a higher temperature to get the beans roasted faster, then life should be good.”

So I got a cookie sheet. Poured a half cup of beans on the sheet. Heated the oven to 500F. Stuck the cookie sheet in. Turned on the light to watch. Slowly they browned. The first crack came around 5 minutes. Ok. Watch it. Watch it. Let it brown. Let it brown. It’s getting there. It’s getting there.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Oh, no! The smoke alarm! I opened the oven, grabbed the cookie sheet, smoke poured out. I ran for the sliding door to the back deck. The house was filled with smoke. Everyone was rudely woken up to the smoke alarm! It’s guy again, trying to roast beans and now filling someone else’s house with smoke!

I actually learned the most by watching these beans. If I had been able to let the beans go for another 30 seconds, the roast would have been perfect. Unfortunately, that would have been 30 seconds of billowing of smoke. The problem with roasting in the oven is that since they are not moving, the roasting of the beans is not very uniform. The beans on the outside edge of the cookie sheet roasted earlier than those on the inside. The smaller beans roasted earlier than the larger one. These “early roasters” were the notorious smokers.

Conventional Oven Roasted - 10 minutes 500F

For some reason this second oven fiasco helped remove some of the mystery of coffee roasting. I felt I knew at what points in the roast I could get a light, medium, and a dark roast. The time difference needed to produce these roasts encompassed a span of about 120-180 seconds. Also, hearing and seeing the first crack made me realize that this is the signal to begin closely watching the color of the beans. Watch the color and listen out for the second crack. This is the art of coffee roasting.

Hand-picked "Early Roasters"

I removed the “early roasters” from the batch and made a cup of coffee. Delicious dark roasted beans. The other beans in the batch were a decent medium roast.

Roasting in a Convection Oven @ Brother-in-law’s

Roasting in a Convection Oven

CONVECTION OVEN–My brother-in-law got inspired by my failure. He suggested his convection oven. So he made a wooden frame and attached a screen on it so the hot air could reach the beans from the bottom. We turned the oven to 450F, let it preheat, then poured the beans onto the screen.

We eagerly watched the beans. They slowly turned brown; then popped like Mexican jumping beans. Without any other guide I just watched the time. After 20 minutes, I called it quits and pulled the beans out. The beans were definitely darker than the popcorn popper beans.

Convection Oven - 20 minutes 450F

But overall it looked like a light roast.

Convection Oven - 49 minutes 450F

My brother-in-law decided to give it a try himself. He felt one thing that might help was to shake the rack every 2-3 minutes. That way the beans may be more evenly roasted. So starting after about 20 minutes, he shook the rack every 2-3 minutes. He finally stopped after 49 minutes. The beans actually looked like dark roasted Sumatra beans from Starbucks. The beans began to have the shine from the oils. After letting the beans rest for 4-5 hours, I made a cup for my brother-in-law and me. Not bad…But one comment my brother-in-law made about home roasting was, “If I had a choice between doing this and buying a bag at Starbucks, I think Starbucks would win.”

Roasting with a Cheap Popcorn Popper @ Brother-in-laws

This is a long overdue post since it occurred about three weeks ago. I have actually succeeded in roasting coffee at home. But for the sake of documentation and posterity, I’m still going to include this  post.

So after seeing Derek working his roaster and getting some green Sumatra coffee beans from Bongo Java for ourselves, my brother-in-law and I were fired up to give home roasting a try. Hopefully this would be a better experience than my personal fiasco with my oven.

Target Chefmate Popcorn Popper

CHEFMATE POPCORN POPPER–So I went to Target and purchased a cheap Chefmate Popcorn Popper for $14.99. According to what I read on the internet about roasting with a popcorn popper, I was expecting to get a reasonable roast after 5-7 minutes. So I went to the deck at the back of my brother-in-law’s house, just in case a lot of smoke was generated again. I had a metal collander to pour the beans into, when it was time to cool them off. I was ready.

I poured a quarter cup of beans into the popper and turned it on. It was actually quite exciting to hear the whirring of the hot air blowing and the beans swirling around in the popper. I waited for the first crack – should sound like popcorn popping. I don’t think I heard anything until about 8 minutes. So it’s late. Second crack should come in another minute or two. Well, not knowing any better, I stopped the popper after 10 minutes. Poured the beans out into the collander, let them cool.

beans cooling in the collander

The beans actually looked a little too raw. I let the beans sit for 5-6 hours and made some coffee in my french press with it. Verdict: still tastes green and raw.

10 minutes in Chefmate Popcorn Popper

I tried it again in the popper, letting it go until 20 minutes.

20 minutes in Chefmate Popcorn Popper

These beans were a little darker than the 10 minute batch. But again, after making a cup, the beans still tasted green and raw.

Judgment on the $14.99 Target Chefmate Popcorn Popper: NEVER GOT HOT ENOUGH! The amount of watts that the popper put out was not high enough. So I cleaned it up and returned the popper to Target.

Roasting with Derek @ Bongo Java Roasting Co.

Derek @ Bongo Java

Over Christmas and New Years, my family and I went to Nashville, TN to visit my brother-in-law and his family. My brother-in-law and I went to check out a local roaster called Bongo Java. We saw Derek roast three batches of coffee: a blend, a central American coffee, and a Sumatra. We could tell that Derek must have been experienced since he could talk to us very casually, but when the critical time came to watch the roast of the beans, he was right there. He never missed a beat. Derek was very cool and helpful.

We left with a pound of green Sumatra beans. Derek’s advice was “Don’t start a fire.”

If you ever go to Bongo Java Roasting Co. in Nashville, don’t forget to check out the bathroom. The animated painting is intense!

Bongo Java's men's room