shadowsnuzzy Senior Member Joined: 8 Jan 2011 Posts: 67 Location: Pleasanton Expertise: Just starting
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 1:35pm Subject: Why home roast?
Hello,
Over the last year or so I've been drinking about 5 double-shot lattes a week. In other words, I use 5 pucks of coffee or approximately 100g of coffee a week. Most people on this forum drink multiple shots a day, and as a result are able to use up a pound of coffee in a week or 2 before it goes bad. For me, however, it takes 5-6 weeks to go through a pound, and even with proper freezing, the coffee doesn't taste as good as it used to in week 1. So I decided to consider home roasting, and I have a few nooby questions. I've already searched for answers on the forum but couldn't really find them.
1) What is the best mid-low priced home roaster? The Rancilio Silvia of roasters, if you will? From my research I think the general consensus points to this: Click Here (www.amazon.com) Am I right?
2) Is Home roasting even worth it? How much cheaper are green beans? I hear they last for a year so that's a STRONG plus. How complicated is home roasting? Do home roast taste better than professional roast? Why do people home roast?
3) Basically, what are the pros and cons to home roasting?
4) Is there a thorough guide to home roasting somewhere? Something like all those Rancilio Silvia guide's that walk you through the process.
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 1:47pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
I roast about six pounds per month, primarily using the Behmor. But for someone who goes through only three ounces of coffee a week, I don't think home roasting at such low volume is worth it with the Behmor. Were I in your shoes, I would look into stovetop or popcorn popper roasting, where you can roast such a small amount in a manner of minutes.
brandonwagner Senior Member Joined: 26 Dec 2012 Posts: 3 Location: Chapel Hill, NC Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 3:10pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
I've been roasting on and off for several years. The first three or four was solely with a hand-crank popcorn popper, but I moved on to the Hearthware i-Roast 2 a couple years ago. I actually prefer the popcorn popper because it's more manual and I can discern the cracks a little more easily, but the wife got me the i-Roast as a gift, so I primarily use it now.
As for your questions: 1) You do not need something made specifically for roasting coffee right off the bat. Buy the $30 air-popper from Sweet Maria's (here) and see if it's worth it for you to make a bigger investment. When you buy a roaster from SM, they include a tip sheet, which will tell you how best to use your selected roaster.
2) Yes, it is worth it. But be forewarned, it is addictive. Green beans are usually no more than 1/2 as much as a pound at a local roaster. If you find a bean you like and want to buy several months worth, it'll get even cheaper. Although, I think Sweet Maria's suggests storing green coffee for no more than 3 months, but I don't have that link handy. Roasting is about as complicated as ... popping popcorn. Takes 30 minutes at the outside, usually much less from start to finish. Unless you have a good local roaster, where you're getting beans that have been roasted in the last two to three days, home roasting will taste better. Usually, the coffee beans you buy in stores and even in most coffee shops are weeks/months old. You'll be drinking coffee beans that are, preferably, only one-to-three days removed from the roast. You can't describe how much better it tastes. I started roasting because I was curious to see *how* much better it would be than the stuff I was getting at Peet's. I was happily surprised.
3) Pros: you will not get fresher, better tasting coffee (really the only pro you need); definite conversation stoking hobby; your friends/lovers will prefer your coffee to any other coffee shop's; clothes can smell like roasted coffee for days. Cons: Can be time consuming; roasting is smoky/stinky - best to do it outdoors; clothes can smell like roasted coffee for days.
4) Browse Sweet Maria's Library. It is an excellent, free resource, from people who have been buying/roasting/drinking coffee a hundred different ways for many, many years.
shadowsnuzzy Senior Member Joined: 8 Jan 2011 Posts: 67 Location: Pleasanton Expertise: Just starting
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 4:18pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
Regaurding the taste of coffee, I always buy coffee from award winning roasters. The coffee generally cost $15 for 12 oz but it comes within 4 days of roast. How would the taste of home roast compare with this already high quality, fresh, professional roast? The primary reason I would do this is to prolonge freshness and save money
Rob989_69 Senior Member Joined: 19 Dec 2012 Posts: 41 Location: Rochester Expertise: Just starting
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 6:34pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
shadowsnuzzy Said:
Regaurding the taste of coffee, I always buy coffee from award winning roasters. The coffee generally cost $15 for 12 oz but it comes within 4 days of roast. How would the taste of home roast compare with this already high quality, fresh, professional roast? The primary reason I would do this is to prolonge freshness and save money
I'm new to roasting myself. I'll give you the rundown and hopefully answer most of your questions. I started with the heatgun and bread maker method, reason being I already had the bread maker and the heatgun was $12. So basically I was able to get started with very little investment. I'd highly recommend trying the same thing. If you have something around the house, give it a try first and if you like it, make the jump to the behmor.
I quickly jumped to the behmor myself. It's a fantastic roaster, but my main reason was I needed to be able to do 1lb batches. For you, I might recommend something like the freshroast 500 instead. It's a little more than half the price and you can roast about a 1/4lb batch. Don't get me wrong, the behmor is great, but kind of over kill for your needs. However, as was stated before, it's addicting.
The coffee is leaps and bounds better than anything I've tasted before. I generally spent between $13 and $15 a pound. Now, I'm spending, on average, $7 a pound and getting MUCH better coffee. You can really taste the nuances between the beans. Just keep in mind, you WILL, beyond a shadow of a doubt, run through a couple pounds of beans before you're turning out consistently good quality roasts every time. You need to be patient and work with it.
Home roasting is incredibly easy. However, it does require patience and attentiveness, as you'll find as soon as you start reading about it, you MUST not leave a roaster unattended. With roast times potentially reaching 20+ minutes you have to be able and willing to commit that kind of time to your hobby. You need to have an area of your home where you either can run a ventilation system or that you don't mind reaking of roasted coffee all the time. Also remember chaff (not as big of a deal with the behmor but still present)
I already stated it but I'll state it again, with a little practice, home roasting will yield results as good as the best quality roasted coffee. And far better than the average roasted coffee.
Best recommendation I could give you as far as guides, YouTube. There are lots of articles here and Sweet Maria's, The Captains Coffee has a number of good guides. But to see and hear the process for yourself youtube is the best.
1 other thing I will mention specifically for the Behmor (maybe for the Freshroast but I don't know for sure) you need a good electrical circuit. I struggled for 2 weeks with mine before realizing I was using a 15 amp circuit in the garage. I had to run a 20 amp circuit specifically for the roaster to get it to work. If you're going to roast in your kitchen, likelyhood is you'll have a 20 amp circuit available. Also a good idea to invest in a Kill - A - Watt meter. They run $20 - $30 but they let you know what your starting voltage is and where it's at under load. This is important initially to diagnose any roasting issues you may have. (speaking from experience here)
Rob989_69 Senior Member Joined: 19 Dec 2012 Posts: 41 Location: Rochester Expertise: Just starting
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 6:37pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
Oh, if you do get the Behmor, I can recommend www.roastmasters.com super fast shipping, free 8lbs of green beans, and a $10 certificate to use on your next order. Plus free shipping. I do know Sweet Maria's will sometimes match deals from other sites so you could go to them and see if they'd match it. I'm impatient so went with Roastmasters.
shadowsnuzzy Senior Member Joined: 8 Jan 2011 Posts: 67 Location: Pleasanton Expertise: Just starting
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 7:04pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
So everything seems good, I guess I'll start with some cheap thing under $50, but I still have 1 important question.
How does the quality compare to PROFESSIONALY ROASTED and fresh coffee? Most people are giving me comparisons to Starbucks or peets beans which I don't use anyways.
brandonwagner Senior Member Joined: 26 Dec 2012 Posts: 3 Location: Chapel Hill, NC Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 7:23pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
Do you mean "professional"? Or "artisinal"? :)
Yes, your coffee can taste as good as your local roaster -- as noted above, though, it will take some practice before you get a roast you're excited about.
kschendel Senior Member Joined: 7 Nov 2008 Posts: 267 Location: Pittsburgh Expertise: I love coffee
Grinder: Maestro Roaster: Freshroast
Posted Wed Dec 26, 2012, 7:25pm Subject: Re: Why home roast?
Roasting is an art, and it's unlikely that you will be able to produce a roast at the same level as the good pro roasters. I roast with a FreshRoast SR500 and occasionally buy a bag from PT's, Counter Culture, etc as a comparison. My very best roasts can match the pros, but they aren't better. My average roast is noticeably poorer although it's still plenty good enough for me. I could probably improve my average roasts if I wanted to invest in some thermocouples, a variac, etc and maybe someday I will.
It may also depend on what greens you buy. I like variety and rarely get more than a few pounds of any given coffee. If you don't mind sticking with the same coffee, and if you log your roasts by time, weighed load, ambient temps, etc you could probably zero in on a really good roast for that coffee even without the bean temp measurements. You might match a pro roast but I still don't think that there is a lot of room to improve on the best of them.
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