Roasting coffee was Re: Detox Ideas (from concrete etc)

[Guest guest]

> Hi ,

>

> Wow. Either I somehow managed to miss all of the available

roasters back

> when I was searching or there are a ton of new ones available.

When I was

> looking the only one that I can remember seeing was the

Alpenroast. At the

> time I decided that was too much money to spend.

It's funny that you mention this right now. On saturday evening our

Zack & Dani's roaster burned out/up on the back deck. We weren't

watching it (a no-no when roasting) and a belt broke in it, causing

the beans to stop moving and begin to burn. A lot of smoke ensued but

no fire. If we'd been watching it we could have shut it down and just

replaced the belt but I'm afraid it was pretty smoke damaged. I had

really been craving a big HotTop (expensive!) anyway for its larger

capacity and was able to convince the DW to let me order one. It

helped that she'd been recently bitten by the roasting bug too! I did

learn my lesson about keeping an eye on the machine no matter what

kind it is.

I recently saw a photo of someone who used a metal dog food dish,

wooden spoon, and a heat gun to roast beans. Seemed to work pretty

well!

>

> Come to think of it -- I actually had two motivations in looking

for a

> coffee roaster. I was trying to find one that would work to roast

and salt

> nuts also. I've been roasting my own cashews and almonds for years

and got

> tired of taking a couple of hours to constantly monitor and turn

the nuts

> while they were cooking in the oven. Since I rarely do roasted

nuts any

> more now that I'm WAPified my interest has waned somewhat. I still

do spend

> a whole day sometime before Christmas roasting cashews as we give

them out

> to all of our friends as Xmas gifts.

I'm not sure I would want to roast nuts and coffee in the same

machine unless you really cleaned it out well between batches. In

addition, with most machines you are looking at a capacity of 4 oz or

so unless you are willing to pay more for the Alpenroast or HotTop.

With the Alpenroast you can't see inside either. The I-Roast has the

kind of programability you might need for nuts, but again the

capacity is only around 4-5 oz.

>

> So now to the important question. Obviously you think that

roasting your

> own beans is worth the effort in pursuit of the perfect cup of

coffee. Is

> there really that much difference between your own freshly roasted

beans and

> fresh pre-roasted beans from a place like Peets? I fully

appreciate the

> difference between grinding your own coffee right before making it

so you

> can factor the grind out of my question.

Well, as you correctly note, fresh grining is important and is

probably more important than the freshness of the roast. That is my

opinion and I know many home roasting fans that would disagree, but I

typically drink my coffee with milk and sugar anyway (except

espresso) so I am a heretic to start with. Of course you don't want

old stale beans, supposedly after 4 days they start loosing their

freshness as the oils oxidise. But if you can buy them freshly

roasted from a good source (like Peets)you are doing pretty good.

Here are my reasons for home roasting:

1) It's fun for me

2) Green beans are half the price or less of roasted beans. They keep

for a year or more without any flavor degradation so if I find one I

really like I can buy a lot of it.

3) A lot greater variety of green beans are available on the 'net

than I can typically find roasted, although some " coffee clubs " are

springing up that buy from small roasters.

4) I can tweak the degree of roast to my liking for each type of

bean, I can blend the same beans of different degrees of roast or I

can blend different beans roasted different ways. Even if you're like

me and muck up the cup of coffee with milk and sugar you can easily

taste the nuances of the different combinations.

5) You can taste the difference between coffee that is around 24

hours since roasting and that which is several days old, but it is

somewhat subtle.