Cool Cucumber

For Christmas a year ago, I got a coffee-roaster from my dad and stepmom. I LOVE roasting my own coffee and decided it’s high time I shared it with all of my Internet Friends. Here’s the deal: I roast a cup of “green” raw coffee beans and they turn into 1 1/2 cups of sheer bliss… and the beans cost half the price they would at a local coffee shop. I roast twice during the weekend and it’s just enough coffee for Rob and me during the week. Any less, we’d run out of coffee; any more, I’d void the warranty on my iRoast2.

However, this batch of coffee was FREE from my good friend Melissa. She and her husband went to Coasta Rica over the holidays and she tracked down some beans that were unroasted. Apparently they were just roasting the coffee beans on the beach and she went to much trouble to get them green for me! Thank you Melissa! Here’s the label for your viewing enjoyment:

So then I put the green beans in the carafe and select a roasting profile that I set up previously. I’ve played with the settings a lot this past year, even to the point of graphing the temperatures using a thermocouple and Microsoft Excel. But I decided to keep it simple for this batch.

Here’s the coffee about halfway through the roast. You have to sit with it and listen to the cracks while it’s roasting. There’s a first crack segment, a period of rest, and then a second crack, which is harder to hear. I like to roast my coffee about 10-30 seconds past second crack ’cause I like it almost burnt.

I like how you can see the little beans flying into the air in these photos.

This is just before I stopped the roast… when you stop a fluid air roaster, it goes into about a three minute cool-down cycle. Oddly enough, the coffee never smells great while it’s roasting. It’s kind of a musty-burning odor.

I store the beans in an airtight container for at least 12 hours (no sneaking sniffs)… then enjoy!

For more photos of the process, visit my coffee roasting set here.