Roasting your own coffee beans has become increasingly popular of lately. This process begins with purchasing raw unroasted green coffee beans and then roasting them on your own equipment. All unroasted green coffee beans are raw and must be roasted prior to grinding and brewing for coffee. Unroasted green coffee beans are easy keepers and will store well for an extended time when kept in a cool dark and dry place. Stock up!

How to roast coffee. In a basic sense roasting coffee is rather easy to do at home. The beans will need to be heated to around 400*F internal temperature and then should be cooled quickly to room temperature. Roasting from green to the perfect brown color usually happens in 10-15 minutes time. During the heating process the beans need to be stirred or tumbled while roasting to prevent surface scorching. Roasting can be accomplished in a pan on the stove, on the bbq grill, in a hot air popcorn popper, or a specific coffee roasting machine. Your heat source will need to able to produce at least 500*F and should have a variable BTU output control. Start with small batch size and try high temperature for first part of the roast and a lower temperature once browning begins. This is called a descending ROR and is essential for best flavor development. Cooling quickly also helps to seal in the beans flavor development. This can be accomplished with a fan while stirring constantly.

Roasting profiles. Once you can achieve successful roasts then you will likely want to learn to further manipulate your time and temperature ROR (rate of rise) during the roast to bring out the very best flavors each bean has to offer. This specific ROR map is called a roasting profile and its development will come with your own personal roasting experience. Your roasting profiles will vary from bean to bean based on their origin and by the bean’s inherent molecular makeup, its density, moisture content, ect. But don’t worry to much about creating the perfect profile in the beginning of learning to roast coffee. Just jump in and start roasting. The rest will all come later! 🙂

All coffee beans are not equal. Coffee is grown on coffee plants mostly on small farms in various regions of the world. The coffee bean is actually the plant’s seed developed for its own reproduction purposes. These coffee beans are produced in pairs within cherries along the coffee plants stems. They mature once in a 12 month period called the harvest time. These harvest times vary from region to region based upon the specific climate, growing elevation, the plant varietal, and the rainfall during the growing season among other variables. The qualities of taste in the cup depends upon all the variables that contributed to the bean’s development within the given growing season. Another major flavor contributor is the processing method used once the coffee cherries are harvested and taken to the coffee mill where they are prepped for export.

Natural Processing. This processing method usually provides the most fruit forward cup of any of the other processing methods. On the flip side the cup is usually a bit softer tasting versus the washed or honey processing methods since the acidity often is not as high. Natural processing is achieved when the beans are dried on patios while still inside the cherry. As the cherry drys down with the beans yet inside the natural cherry fruitiness seems to kind-of ferment right into the beans a bit. This is what creates those more fruit forward cup qualities. Natural processed beans are brown in color. They require a more gentle touch when roasting to bring out best cup notes.

Honey Processing. This processing method also provides a more fruit-forward cup, but with a brighter acidity than the natural processing method. Honey processing is achieved by pulping the coffee beans out of the cherry, and then drying them on the patios without washing prior to drying. With honey processing the sticky fruit pulp is left to dry on the beans and is what helps to create a more fruit forward cup. At the same time there is no fermentation as in the natural processing method; so the resulting acidity is brighter. Honey processed beans are brown to red in color, and look a little like honey was spilled on them. Roasting is similar to natural processing profiles.

Washed Processing. This processing method provides a very clean tasting cup with the brightest acidity. Washed processing is achieved by first pulping the beans out of the cherry then washing the beans in a large vat for a few hours to remove all pulpy residue before finally drying the beans on the patios. The end result of the beans is a nice green color. The flavor characteristics with washed processing can be fruity and quite interesting in the cup depending upon the beans natural characteristics. The flavors are usually crisp and clean tasting. Roasting profiles will need to be more aggressive with higher temperatures applied to bring out desirable cup qualities.

Premium beans. We do not purchase cheap coffee beans. You will notice our prices are not the cheapest price you can find for coffee beans on the internet, but in the world of coffee it is often said “you get what you pay for”. A good quality bean provides so much more satisfaction in the cup. When you spend all that time and money on your roasting enterprise why would you cheap out on beans? It is simply so much more rewarding to go with the best beans that you can afford and then roast them well. To be perfectly transparent, our margins are very narrow on our beans. Once you apply any available coupons we send out and when combining those savings with our rewards program and our ultra low shipping costs your end result is low wholesale pricing for premium beans that will produce excellent quality results in the cup. When you start with our beans your coffee that you spend time roasting with care will be something that you can truly be proud of sharing with all your friends and family.