gary_william

does anyone (else) here roast their own coffee? If so, what equipment are you using? I have a "the Poppery" popcorn popper made by WesstBend, and I get really good results. I can make from city to french just by watching the color and listening to the cracks/smoke. Anyone else have good results, or tricks that we can all share?

soopa

never though of doing this, but sounds yummy. i doubt there's many doing it, maybe you can school us?

if it's as easy as running the beans through a popcorn popper....

Whiskers

There are many brewers / grinders, but I question the effectiviness....

anothercls

http://store.coffeeroasting.com/index.html <--looks to be interesting from an initial look. I just want to be able to get Tim Horton's coffee shipped to me.

Slimey

I've seriously considered and then abandoned this.

There are too many variables to get the perfect bean blend and roast -- I'd rather not tinker with this step. IMHO, there are too many other options to get good beans/roast -- I just pop open the Illy can and dump it into the burr grinder.

If you are a serious tinker though, this might be for you. It's on the level of brewing your own beer or making your own wine. It can be done, and done well, but there are too many other GREAT options out there to make it worth the time to get to the goal -- assuming your goal is perfection and not mediocrity.

Scribesoft

Great. Now I'm interested in learning more. One more thing to put on the list of things to do when I get time.

gary_william

I have been doing it for a few weeks now, and I have been able to get very satisfactory results to date. Everyone that has tried the coffee I have made for them has ranted about how good it was. and, by having green beans and roasting them in smaller batches, I can select from any number of beans to make coffee with, not just opening a can of Chock Full O Nuts or a bag from Starbucks. I have 5 pounds of green beans in-house, and I have three types of them already roasted and ready to make coffee from, so tomorrow the tough decision comes; which to roast. And once I perfect it I will have a ready-made Christmas present for casual friends and neighbors.

soopa

So, Gary, how do we get started?

gary_william

to get started, I guess one could go to www.sweetmarias.com and look at their information. I also did some google searches for coffee roasting and coffee roasters, and found some good references. Apparently the best popcorn popper-based method is with a popper called The Poppery, made by West Bend. This is a 1500 watt popper, and is no longer being manufactured. They do make a West Bend Poppery II, but it is only 1200 watts. Look on Ebay and you can find them for about $40, or look in a garage sale and fine one for $10, but you will probably be looking for a while until you find one. I still need to buy a thermometer to add to the unit, but in general I go by sound and smell.

I will post more links to good reference site when I get home.