A couple of low brightness roasts

[Jon Solberg]

My order of green beans hit yesterday. Roasted up a couple of low brightness batches.
Brazil Pulp Natural Fazenda do Sertao which is at 7.8 and a Honduras Ocotepeque Manuel Espana at 8.1. Both sound pretty earth but my under developed patate is good with that right now.

[Huskee]

Jon here's a completely ignorant coffee roasting question.. Do you just basically bake the beans, until they get dark brown almost burnt, is that all there is to it? Or is there more to it?

[Jon Solberg]

No such thing as a ignorant question. Theres a bit more to it. and you need to keep the beans moving during the process. There are several levels of roast and each one has a different taste. You roast it to where you want it. This is a bit long but a good overview.

• Yellowing: For the first few minutes the bean remains greenish, then turn lighter yellowish and emit a grassy smell.
• Steam: The beans start to steam as their internal water content dissipates.
• First Crack: The steam becomes fragrant. Soon you will hear the "first crack," an audible cracking sound as the real roasting starts to occur: sugars begin to caramelize, bound-up water escapes, the structure of the bean breaks down and oils migrate from their little pockets outward.
• First Roasted Stage: After the first crack, the roast can be considered complete any time according to your taste. The cracking is an audible cue, and, along with sight and smell, tells you what stage the roast is at. This is what is call a City roast.
• Caramelization: Caramelization continues, oils migrate, and the bean expands in size as the roast becomes dark. As the roast progresses, this is a City + roast. Most of our roast recommendations stop at this point. When you are the verge of second crack, that is a Full City roast.
• Second Crack: At this point a "second crack" can be heard, often more volatile than the first. The roast character starts to eclipse the origin character of the beans at this point and is also known as a Vienna roast. A few pops into second crack is a Full City + roast. Roasting all the way through second crack may result in small pieces of bean being blown away like shrapnel!
• Darkening Roast: As the roast becomes very dark, the smoke is more pungent as sugars burn completely, and the bean structure breaks down more and more. As the end of second crack approaches you will achieve a French roast.
• Ack!! Too Late! Eventually, the sugars burn completely, and the roast will only result in thin-bodied cup of "charcoal water."

​
The above is from Sweet Maria's BTW

[Huskee]

Awesome! Same feeling as the first time I read the brisket article. Coffee interests me, and I never knew much about it other than I hate 99% of every pot brewed anywhere it's for sale. I hate to be considered a Starbucks snob---I'm not---but they do make a strong cup which I'll take any day over brown water restaurant and gas station coffee.

I should experiment with roasting. I assume it's much cheaper? You recommend a certain affordable roaster?

[Jon Solberg]

Check it out here. http://www.sweetmarias.com/store/hom...ting-4580.html

Its easy and awesome.

I know I posted this someplace here already. Me doing a batch on my tailgate.

[Huskee]

Looks like a metal vs of my popcorn popper. I should try using that. No oil I assume...

[Jon Solberg]

Thats what it is a whirl pop popcorn maker. Once you use it for coffee thats pretty much what it will become. A coffee roaster, No oil. Lots of folks disagree with stove top roasting but its a great starting platform. To get started you need 50 bucks and 10 min of time. Coffee runs from 5-12 bucks a pound after that.

[David Parrish]

It's been a decade or so but Kona, Hawaii is the first place I toured a coffee plantation. I got to see everything being described above. It was pretty cool. No person should travel completely through life without trying 100% Pure Kona Coffee.

[Huskee]

Agreed, good stuff. We had a couple of friends who went their (HI) on their honeymoon and brought us back some. Smooth volcanic soil goodness.

We named one of our huskies, the female, Kona! (The male was Starbuck. We like coffee)

[Jon Solberg]

Totally looking forward to that Kona someday. I just gotta hone my skills first then roast me up some of that someday!

[Atalanta]

My roomie was in Hawaii a couple years ago. She managed to convince a Kona grower to sell her a bag of green so she could bring it home to me.

[David Parrish]

We named one of our huskies, the female, Kona! (The male was Starbuck. We like coffee)

I guess so!

[Huskee]

Maxwell & Folger just didn't have the same ring, lol

[David Parrish]

Hah! I suppose they don't.

[_John_]

[SIZE=12px]No such thing as a ignorant question.

Come work with me... I lived in Hawaii for years, and try to go back every other year. Its really pretty cool knowing the trees and the family that actually went out and picked your coffee. I even helped out the last time I was there, very cool.

[Jon Solberg]

I roasted up a couple of pounds of Honduras Ocotepeque Manuel Espana. Low on the rating by most standards but I really like this bean

WOW this was a good cup to me. I even boiled it on the campfire this weekend in a tin can and I really enjoyed it.

[Atalanta]

Ha! I put my coffee roaster in my sig line before I even saw this topic!

I started roasting with a Fresh Roast roaster. When that burned out, I got a second one. They're great intro units, a step above a hot air popcorn popper. There are pages and pages of info out there on using a hot air popper and some of the mods on them are impressive.

When the second one died, I borrowed a Melita roaster I'd given my mom as a gift. She had no interest so I borrowed it back to use in between roasters. It was sort of a step down. Now I have a Hot Top roaster which I need to use more.

Getting started roasting coffee is super simple. You can either start with a hot air popcorn roaster or a cast iron skillet. I've read some eloquent posts about skillet roasting. No matter what method you use, you want to be outside unless you're in a lab under a hood (or have one in your kitchen) or you have some other set up to vent the SMOKE.

After using a hot air roaster, a lot of people will move on to a drum roaster. You can get attachments that will hook a drum roaster to your grill's rotisserie. Or you can make your own.

Sweet Maria's is a great resource. I also like The Coffee Project (wrote some articles for them). I'm a moderator on forum.homeroasters.org and also participate at CoffeeGeek.com. Homeroasters.org has some great eye candy of home-built roasters.

As I was reading some of Meathead 's articles on calibrating a charcoal grill, I got to thinking that roasting meat and roasting coffee aren't "that" much different.

[kingdarb]

Very cool. I just started making my own espresso at home.. I can see myself getting into this at some point...

[Mr. Bones]

Super Cool, Jon Solberg ! Thanks fer th' informative tutorial, and fer sharin'!

I miss the' coffee in Honduras.
Also really miss th' espressos in Sicily. Jinky's!!! That stuff could dang near wake th' Dead!!!

Both Good Sh!t, Maynard!

(I seem ta' natcherly do 'Low Brightness', or so ah'm told'!!!)

[HawkerXP]

Thanks Jon, BTW enjoyed your videos too!

[Abom]

Once you roast your own, and you learn all about that "gourmet" stuff on the supermarket shelves, you'll never buy pre-roasted again. I used to buy the coffees marked "bold" because I liked strong coffee flavour. What I was really tasting was charcoal, but was just to ignorant to realize it until I had something to compare to! I use a GeneCafe. I guess I'll have to add that to the signature!