Home coffee-roasting results

Now that I've tried to roast my own beans and had a cup of coffee made from those beans, it's time to review the results. But first, I'd like to show you my popcorn pumper making popcorn. If you get an air popper from the thrift store, it's probably a good idea to try and make popcorn with it first to make sure that it works.

Ok, so now that you know that I used a working popcorn maker, here are the results of my coffee-roasting experiments.

Trial 1:

my set-up on the balcony

Bag of green Sumatra beans

I took the scrap beans from the bottoms of the three burlap sacks and topped them off with the Sumatra Mandheling beans. The popcorn pumper has a half-cup measuring scoop that's also part of the cover. I used that to measure 1/2 cup of green coffee beans to use. Since I didn't want my whole apartment to smell like roasted coffee, I did this outside on the balcony by plugging the machine into a power strip, which was plugged into the wall just inside the window. This turned out to be a good idea because the chaff that went flying made a bit of a mess. The mistake was leaving the cover off the popcorn pumper. This meant that the temperature did not reach the right temperature and the beans didn't get to a nice color, even after 12 minutes. So, I cooled them off anyway. I went into the kitchen and thought that putting the beans on a sheet and toasting them in the toaster oven might be a good idea. I did that for about 5 minutes (until I heard some crackling sounds) and took them out to cool. That's how I roasted the beans you see in the picture below. As you can see, it's a light roast.

Fresh light roast, smelled great after 24 hours.

Nice thick layer of crema on top

Fresh espresso with thick layer of crema

The next day, I brewed this in a simple Cuisinart 4-cup drip brew machine with a paper filter to taste "normal" coffee. Then, I brewed a crema coffee with my espresso maker. I added soy creamer to both. The regular coffee tasted like Dunkin' Donuts coffee, which is pretty good when it's fresh. However, I usually drink a dark roast, so this was just not to my liking. The crema coffee was very nice with a thick layer of crema (check out the pictures above). However, the next time, I will try to roast the coffee a little darker, maybe until I see some oils on the surface.

Trial 2:

This time, I put the cover on the popcorn pumper and went on the balcony again. It was a little warmer outside, so I was hoping that using a cover and the warmer ambient temperature might help me create a darker roast. I also decided to take my camera outside and film the process at intervals. I didn't film the whole thing because watching coffee roast is like watching your dryer spin your clothes around and around. It's not great footage. Here's a video summary of what I did:

Even though the weather was better and I got the roast a little darker in the popcorn pumper, I didn't want to wait around for more than 20 minutes. So, I finished them off in the toaster oven again for a few minutes (until I started hearing crackling and saw a bit of smoke coming out of the toaster oven) and got some dark oily beans. As you can see in the picture below, I got a "mixed" or uneven roast, meaning that some beans were roasted darker than others. I'd also like to caution you that the smoke doesn't smell great. If you try the toaster oven finishing method, make sure the windows are open. The whole process of roasting coffee does not create a nice smell for your home. It's not awful but it's not the same smell as you get when you grind the finished beans, which smells great.

Uneven roast

Uneven roast on the left (Trial 2), light roast on the right (Trial 1)

Trial 2 roast on the tray, Trial 1 roast in the jar

Trial 3:

After reviewing the video of the roasting process in trial 2, I thought that the beans might have been spinning a little too quickly. So, for this trial, I decided to add more beans, until they spun a little slower in the popcorn pumper. It turned out very nicely this time and I did not have to use my toaster oven. I got the beans to a nice dark roast but not enough to get oils. The solution for getting a reasonably even dark roast was to put more coffee in the chamber - up to the point where the metal meets the plastic (in the Popcorn Pumper). However, it was not much more than the 1/2 cup that I used in Trial 2. Maybe 1/4 cup more was all that I needed to put in. The whole roasting process took about 13 to 14 minutes for a medium-dark roast with no oils on the surface. After roasting, the volume came to about 1 cup. Here's a short video of the roast:

This video is also featured on Popcorn Hot Air Popper

Save money on popcorn and roast your own coffee beans with an air popper.

Popcorn is one of those snacks that can be bought in several forms. You can get it pre-popped in a bag, sprinkled with cheese, in microwavable packages, or just the plain popping corn either in bulk or packaged. The pre-popped stuff is the most expensive (by weight) and the plain popping corn is the cheapest. It might seem like a hassle to pop the corn every time you want a snack, but if you eat it regularly, get an air popper from your local thrift store for $6 or less and save yourself a ton of money. Besides, it really doesn't take much more time than the microwaving a bag of popcorn and you won't get scorched popcorn with an air popper. It's also easier to adjust the amount of butter and salt. If you look on the ingredient labels of those microwave popcorn bags, it's kinda yucky. Personally, I don't use my popcorn poppers for making popcorn (see below). However, in case anyone reading this actually uses their popcorn poppers for making popcorn, some models have a removable cup on top of the lid to measure the amount of kernels to put into the machine. If there is no cup, use about 1/3 cup of kernels. Turn the machine on and stop it when there are no more kernels. Cool?

Air poppers - not just for popcorn!
If you think an air popper only does one thing, you're wrong. It actually doubles as a coffee roaster, if you get the right kind of air popper. Look for the Poppery or Popcorn Pumper. It's important that you use the right type of air popper for roasting coffee. The point of roasting your own coffee is not really to save money because 5 pounds of green coffee will produce only about 4 pounds of roasted coffee. The advantage of roasting your own beans is that you know that will have the freshest coffee in your cup. The stuff you get at the store might have been there for months.

Anyway, we were talking about roasting coffee in a popcorn maker, right? Here's a very in-depth video of the whole process:

However, if you don't want to make the modifications, roast the coffee outside and remove the lid of the popper as this guy did:

Note: if you remove the lid, you can't do this outside in cold temperatures because the coffee won't get up to the right temperature for roasting. The lid is actually necessary to keep the heat in.

Sweet Maria's has a video too. They also have a list of the best air poppers to use.

This fellow in this video uses a "chimney" instead of the popcorn pumper lid. I'm not sure where he got it but it seems like a good idea. He also shows the entire roasting process and narrates it throughout:

And, one last resource, which is very detailed, with pictures and all that:

Coffee Geek

Empty burlap sack ($1.50)

Where do you get green coffee beans? In the Boston area, there are two places that definitely have green coffee beans:

1. the South End Food Emporium on Columbus Ave. (at W. Newton St.). However, they only have Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans (I asked the guy and he said they were Yirgacheffe beans). The advantage of going there is that you can get as much or little as you want because the beans are in a container in front of the cashier and you fill your own bag. They weigh it for you and it's $5.99 a pound (as of May 2012). They also have injera bread, in case you're into Ethiopian bread. 
2. Polcari's in the North End, at 105 Salem Street, which is parallel to Hanover. In August 2012, the two types they had were Ugandan ($8/lb) and Colombian ($6.50/lb). They also have a lot of other great things like teas and spices. I ended up buying red tea and Dutch cocoa on impulse! 

 If you want more varieties in smaller bags (e.g. 1 lb), Sweet Maria's is the online place to go. Their prices are reasonable and they have some other products that might interest you. However, if you want to save a little more money, Coffee Bean Direct has 5 lb bags for great prices. For example, the Sumatra is only $5.60/lb [check their website for the most recent prices!]. However, if you'd like to have freshly roasted coffee, save more money, and don't care what kind of coffee beans you're getting, their Poor Man's Blend green coffee is only about $23 for 5 pounds (plus shipping). That's as cheap as you can get for green coffee beans. If you buy that blend roasted, it's $5.65/lb. I haven't tried it yet. If anyone has, please let me know what you think of it. The fact that it's only $1 more per pound for Sumatra green beans makes it difficult for me to justify getting a bag of unknown origin beans. To make the shipping cost worth it, check out their amazing selection of loose teas, tea pouches, and other things (e.g. empty burlap sacks for $1.50 each). The shipping doesn't go much higher than $11, so if you can get a bunch of friends to order stuff with you in one shipment, that will save you even more dough. If you drink a lot of tea, you can save quite a bit of money by buying 2 pounds at a time. Their roasted coffees are good too, in case you don't want to bother with roasting your own coffee. They don't roast the beans until you place your order, so the coffee is very fresh. I've been buying from them for over 5 years and they've been awesome! Their facility is in New Jersey, so if you order from Boston, it usually takes only 2 to 4 days to ship your order. I recently ordered a bag of green Sumatra beans and a couple of burlap sacks on a Monday and got the shipment in on Wednesday. If you want roasted coffee, it'll probably be an extra day or two. [Helpful note about the burlap sacks: to remove the smell from them, soak them in hot water and air dry them (outside if possible).]

Ok, so back to the air popper. Another reason for getting the air popper at a thrift store is that any warranty is going to be void if you get it new. So, why waste the money on a new popper? Just plug the machine in at the thrift store to make sure it turns on. If it does, get it. If you try to roast coffee at home, make sure to take precautions like making sure that you can unplug the popper easily in case anything goes wrong. If you're going to roast on the porch, use a power strip with an on/off switch. Read the Coffee Geek's directions and you should be ok. I also have a blog post with a video on roasting coffee in a Popcorn Pumper.

5 lbs of green Sumatra coffee beans and a few free beans I found at the bottom of the burlap sacks!

My first batch of home-roasted coffee beans - used a Popcorn Pumper and the toaster oven to finish them off.