You Can Easily Roast Specialty Coffee At Home

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Is it possible to roast coffee at home? Yes, you can purchase green coffee beans and roast them at home. There is a learning curve involved, but thanks to inexpensive equipment and online resources, it is approachable and enjoyable. It contributes to delicious fresh coffee beans every day. A few companies specialize in home roasting by selling equipment and green coffee beans. Let me tell you more about your potential new hobby.

From online purchases to home roasting

As you know, I am obsessed with freshly roasted beans. I always recommend purchasing beans from a roaster who shares the roast date. Ideally, you want your beans to be less than 2 weeks old to keep all the beautiful aromas and flavors. In my Get Fresh Coffee Beans Delivered Right to Your Door! In the article, I mentioned purchasing fresh coffee from top roasters online. It was a great way to get high-quality specialty coffee roasted before shipping but also costly.
I kept seeing some people mentioning home roasting in coffee discussion boards, and I decided to learn more about it. Green coffee beans are significantly cheaper, and I would always have fresh coffee. I watched videos about different home coffee roasters. I realized that it was approachable.

My buying criteria for a home coffee roaster

My first batch was pretty good, to my surprise. It took me less than 10 minutes to roast 8 ounces of green beans into delicious roasted coffee. I realized that it produces a fair amount of smoke, which tends to upset my smoke detectors. I was delighted with the results I got from my first few batches. Of course, my coffee was not as good as what I was getting from the most skilled roasters, but it was fresh and delicious. I quickly stopped purchasing coffee online and produced most of my coffee at home.

Benefits of roasting at home

Cost

Most online retailers propose a large variety of beans that can be purchased by the pound or in increments (2, 3, 5, 10, or larger quantities). Quality specialty green coffee cost typically $5.00 to $7.00 per pound. The price can be slightly lower when purchasing in large quantities.
To put things in perspective, similar quality specialty beans from a skilled roaster cost between $16.00 and $20.00 for a 12oz bag, which is $21.00 to $26.00 per pound. Green coffee is, therefore, 3 to 4 times cheaper than roasted coffee.

Freshness

My other motivation to roast at home was always to have access to fresh coffee and not to wait for my next bag of coffee to be mailed. By roasting at home, you always have access to the freshest beans.
Green coffee has a shelf life of greater than 2 years. It does not require any specific packaging if stored in a temperate environment and protected from light. Have you seen these big burlap coffee bags? Well, that is what they still use to ship coffee. It has been working for centuries and still works perfectly well. The benefit of this shelf life is that I could purchase a good quantity of different types of coffee simultaneously without worrying that they would get stale. I can roast as often as desired and get the freshest coffee on demand.

Discovering a new world

Developing a new skill is rewarding. In today’s world, it is incredibly more accessible thanks to countless online resources made available by home roasters and even skilled professionals. There are also numerous varieties of green coffee beans from all over the world available from specialized retailers. The other fun part is that you get to decide which roast level you want to get. You can experiment with multiple roasts levels for the same type of bean to find what you prefer. You can control the process and precisely decide the roast level with some practice.

What do you need to roast coffee at home?

Green coffee

You can purchase green coffee beans online from websites specializing in home roasting. They offer a large variety of green specialty-level coffee beans. The packaging options are also quite varied: from a small 1lb sampler to a 20 lb burlap bag. Good quality coffee beans typically cost $6-7 per pound. Moreover, these retailers provide detailed descriptions and recommendations regarding the best roast levels.

• Sweet Maria’s

• Coffee Bean Corral

I also purchased from Coffee Bean Corral. They offer a wide selection of beans and make the choice easy thanks to a clever matrix that displays their recommendations based on your preferences (origins, flavor profile, attribute, ratings, etc.). I like their packaging: attractive cloth bags with a drawstring and a clear label with a bar code that allows you to get all the bean information from your phone quickly. However, they offer fewer details on the beans and roasting recommendations than Sweet Maria’s.

• Burman Coffee Traders

Another popular retailer is Burman Coffee Traders, but I haven’t had direct experience with them.

Equipment for roasting coffee at home

You do not need fancy professional equipment to roast coffee. You can start with something as basic as a cast iron skillet. However, it requires much attention to roast beans evenly and to control the process since you need to move the beans to avoid scorching them constantly.

An inexpensive popcorn popper is a great way to learn how to roast small batches, but it offers few control options and can only roast a few ounces at a time.

Then there are dedicated home coffee roasters. You will find different options at different prices, designed to roast a few ounces or up to one kilogram/2 lbs.
There are 2 prominent home coffee roaster types: air and drum roasters.

• Air Roasters

Air roasters essentially work like popcorn poppers. The idea is to blow hot air under a bed of raw green beans to roast them evenly until the desired level. The hot air agitates the beans. This agitation typically results in a consistent temperature for the beans. Air roasters allow the operator to adjust the temperature and the fan speed to effectively control the process from beginning to end. One key benefit of air roasters is that you can cool the beans by turning off the heat and leaving the fan on.

I have been roasting coffee with an SR800 for the last 2 years. I managed reasonably quickly to get great results with most coffee beans. Learning to roast coffee myself taught me to respect the results of skilled professional roasters. I am still struggling with challenging beans, like some coffee from Yemen. My main frustration is that I am limited to relatively small batches, which forces me to roast 3 or 4 batches per week since I usually consume over a pound (460g).

• Drum roasters

Drum roasters are similar to the professional machines you can sometimes see at the back of your local coffee shop if they roast their beans themselves. The beans are roasted in a drum that constantly rotates to allow the beans to absorb heat evenly.

A little under $500, the Behmor 2000AB Plus is the most affordable drum roaster designed for home use. It is an excellent option for beginners since it offers different automatic programs. You can adjust the settings manually when you feel more confident with the process. This device can roast batches of up to 16 oz at a time. It also comes with a smoke suppressor. It is compact: about the size of a small toaster oven, and you can easily store it between uses. One of the downsides is that it is slow to cool the beans once you reach the desired roast level, so you may want to use a dedicated device to cool the beans.

There are also some pricier options. The Ailio Bullet R1 roaster looks like a mini version of a professional roaster. It is very well crafted, it can roast up to 2 pounds (1 kg) per batch, and you can control the entire process by computer. This level of excellence comes at a steep price: $3,500! Professional roasters use the Ailio for testing micro-batches of coffee in their shop.

You must monitor the entire process closely regardless of which type of roaster you choose. Coffee contains oils and letting coffee burn too long can create a fire hazard.

Containers for preserving your delicious coffee

Once your delicious coffee is roasted, you must store it in a container. Coffee releases a lot of CO2 after the roasting process. It is essential to degas coffee to allow flavors to shine. You also want to isolate your coffee from ambient air to delay the oxidation process that causes your beans to get stale, especially if you plan to keep it for a few weeks. The solution is to use airtight containers with a release valve that allows the CO2 to escape but does not let air in.

A kitchen scale

I strongly advise a kitchen scale to ensure you stay within the maximum capacity of your roaster.

The Bottom Line

Roasting coffee at home is a fun way to develop your exploration of coffee. It allows you to control even more parameters and always get the freshest coffee. If you consume a significant quantity of specialty coffee beans, purchasing green coffee can help you save some money if you are willing to spend one hour per week on it.

Sources:
https://perfectdailygrind.com/2019/01/why-does-coffee-degas-what-does-it-mean-for-brewers-roasters/#:~:text=If%20you%20use%20coffee%20that,they%20have%20also%20interrupted%20extraction.