My original hope was to work there and learn how to roast coffee. While I've learned a bit most of my time was spent reconditioning a Probat roaster. While it's been interesting I'm still interested in learning how to roast coffee.
To that end, I've decided to try to roast coffee at home. Sweet Marias is the go to place for home roasters. They've a section on home roasting. After a bit of reading and searching the net I decided to try a popcorn roaster as a first effort.
I ordered a Orville Redenbacher by Presto hot air popcorn popper which just arrived. Karma provided some Mexican beans, chosen because they are uniform due to water processing and generally easy to roast. I've also ordered a high temperature oven thermometer, coffee roast to about 450F, and a book on home roasting that Dave at Karma recommended. Those should be here early next week.
Meanwhile, I decided to try roasting. Here's what the popcorn popper looks like.
I put some beans in to the roaster's fill line and plugged it in, there's no on/off switch so I'll have to think about adding one. The first thing that happened is that beans started to fly out! The hot air entrance to the heating chamber is rather small and I suspect the air flow/pressure is high with the result that beans fly out.
I tried adding more beans but all that did was stop the beans from moving at all. Not good!
I have some 1/4 inch screen on hand so I took a small piece and used it to shield the cooking chamber. Now no beans come out and the screen is course enough that most of the chaff escapes. I set a large bowl with a damp paper towel in it underneath the spout and that seems to be reasonably effective at catching the chaff.
I was rather lax about timing but the Mex beans got to first crack in 4 to 6 minutes. I suspect that I had to many beans to get a decent suspension. Second crack started at about 10 minutes and by twelve there was much smoke and I stopped the roast.
I used a large pizza pan to cool the beans and that seemed to work well. The beans were solidly in second crack as I dumped. That said, the roast color was a bit uneven (to many beans?).
The only other issue is that roasting coffee smells like, well, roasting coffee. I neglected to turn on the exhaust fan to begin with with the net result that the entire house now smells of roasted coffee.
All in all, as a first effort I'm reasonably satisfied Yield was 75g of roasted coffee (not sure about the input weight but it should have been about 90g).
Tomorrow I'll get some Mex from Karma and then brew and taste both the Karma and my roast to see what is what.
When the thermometer comes in I'll put it into the roaster. I'll also find a timer and a better screen (the current one is galvanized and I'd prefer stainless).
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