Coffee and Caffeine FAQ

From earliest times coffee roasting has been done in a frying pan using a stick to stir. You can use a wok but it is a difficult job keeping the temperature hot enough without scorching (tipping) the beans.

An adaptation of the wok is the stovetop corn popper - a saucepan with a lid and a stirring paddle inside turned by a handle. These are commonly fitted with a thermometer by the home roaster to assess the roast as it progresses. This method can become tedious since you must continue to stir the coffee as it roasts.

The next step is the electric popcorn popper. These are available throughout the world with a very small investment - and are often available in thrift/charity shops even cheaper. They are very commonly used and were the mainstay of the hobbyist roaster up to fairly recently. The procedure with these machines is simply to add half a cup of beans and switch on. They should start rotating immediately - if not give them a stir until they lighten and turn themselves. After a while they go yellow; then there is a distinct "cracking" sound (1st crack.) and this will continue for a minute or so. Around this time the chaff (white silverskin covering on the bean) will be blown off. Continuing to heat them will gradually change their color.

The easiest way to judge the color is to have a sample bean of the required color beside the roaster. If you want to roast darker than Full City, you will get a 2nd crack. This is often much quieter than 1st and you may miss it on your first attempt or so. Just before the required color is reached tip the beans into a sieve/colander and blow air on them - or toss between two sieves. As you get more experience you may want to control the process more closely by weighing the beans, using a timer, thermometer mounted in the butter tray - gadgets limited only by your ingenuity!

It should be mentioned that this method must we watched carefully since the chaff can catch fire if it touches the heating element.

The final method is the factory built home roasting machine. These machines work on the same principle as the popcorn roaster – blowing hot air up through the beans - but they have a built in timer, a cooling cycle at the end that cuts in automatically and a chaff collection device at the top. The price of these devices varies according to volume of coffee roasted and company producing them

These machines have simplified the process drastically. When you have the timer setting determined by practice, you can simply stay in the area just to keep an eye on them in case anything goes wrong as opposed to carefully watching the device and then juggling the beans at the end of the process.

The total roasting process takes from 5 to 18 minutes depending on the type of machine and degree of roast.

Recent new additions to the options for home roasters include a true drum batch roaster similar to what many professional roasting companies use.

There are at least a couple of companies fabricating gas grill drums that are capable of one and two pound batches for the home roaster who needs larger capacity.

Some of the people in the home roasting movement and many of its early proponents are tinkerers. For this reason there are numerous modifications to all of the above methods that have been documented on the web.

There are some disadvantages to home roasting. First the chaff can be an annoyance. Even with the collection devices on the home roasting machines there is a fine dust that escapes the trap. Secondly the smell can be offensive to some people. The darker the roast, the more smoke is given off. An oily roast will produce visible clouds.

Some home roasters have created venting systems above their roasting positions, open windows, cooker hoods. You can find info on these by searching the web. Many people simply go outside or into their garage.