Use Your Coffee Grinder On Your Home Roasted Beans
Roasting Your Own Beans Roasting your own coffee beans at home is now easy and your results can be as good as store bought. You can buy many types of roasters to roast your beans or even a pan can work for you. Make sure that no matter what you use that your equipment is clean. Tasting old oils in your coffee will ruin the flavor. The darker your roast the less caffeine it has, but it may also have less of an acidic taste like your light roast. Always use the highest quality coffee beans if you want the best espresso or lattes! You need to heat your beans to about 460F (223 C) and 530F (262 C), so you may have some smoke issues in your home. You can use a fan or the stove top exhaust to take care of the smoke. You might want to kick your family out the house and leave all the windows open when you are first experimenting with your roasting prospects because of the odor. Turn off your fire alarm and then drop your beans in your roaster and get the heat cranking. If your roaster has a built-in thermometer then you can relax, if not then you need to have your own. Using a candy-making thermometer is a good solution. Your beans will go from green to yellow and finally to brown while you are roasting them. Your individual preferences will determine how dark you want your roast. It will also determine what level you set your coffee grinder to when you are done. You will hear your beans crack when the oil and water put pressure on them. This is a normal occurrence so don’t fret. As you roast your beans they will go from green to yellow to brown. You can choose the darkness of your roast and go from there. Just remember to keep stirring every 30 seconds or more. As the roasting process continues the inner sugars will turn brown and burn a bit. You can check the color every 30 seconds to decide how you want your beans. If you are doing a very long roast you will hear another long crack. Sometimes it will be very dark and perhaps too roasted for some coffee lovers. You shouldn’t go beyond a second crack or you will get a harsh result. Pour the beans into a metal jar and then shake them up. The roasting process will cause the skin to fall off and you will want to rinse this off using a mesh cooking screen. You can experiment with your beans to figure out how dark you want them and the flavor you desire. Since the heat will last longer in your beans stop cooking them before its too late. If you are using a popcorn popper to roast your beans then get one that will allow you access to your beans to stir them during the roasting. Using a cast iron skillet on the stove top will also work very well. The roasting happens fast so get ready for all the stirring you need to do. Once you are done, put your beans in your coffee grinder and get ready for some yummy coffee or espresso. By Clinton T. Maxwell - |