Has anyone else joined in on roasting coffee beans at home yourself?

I love a good cup of coffee.  If I wasn’t so frugal, I would probably be one of those coffee junkies frequenting coffee shops for a good cup.  Well on my trip of learning to do more things for myself, I am mastering an easy way to roast my own coffee beans.  Cathy (catray44) started a topic about roasting your own coffee beans at home in a cast iron pan over on the forum. She’s also posted the process here on Farm Bell Recipes.

Of course, the first thing I did was compare costs.  I simply couldn’t see investing my time and money if buying green coffee “peas” was going to cost more than I was already spending on coffee in a blue container.  It just wasn’t going to happen — miss frugality here!

I searched the net and landed on eBay at this shop.  I bid on and won 20# of El Salvador Arabica Organic Green Coffee Beans for $60, with free shipping.  Through my searches, I found you will lose about 18% of the weight during roasting –1# of green coffee beans will yield about 13 oz of roasted beans.  So, with this loss of weight, these beans cost $3.63 per pound.

Now, back to that blue container……WHEN DID THE 3# CAN BECOME NOT QUITE 2#  ?!?!?! The last container I bought was $8.27.  So that’s $4.14 per pound!

CHEAPER!!!  And I could not see anywhere in my mind where my home roasted, home ground, home brewed coffee beans would not be better than my store bought, already ground coffee!

I’ve been roasting my own coffee beans every week since the beginning of April.  It’s another one of those things where you can picture your grandma in her apron, at her old stove, with a cast iron pan stirring up coffee beans.

It really, really is a very simple process.  And you can keep experimenting to get that perfect roast that you like.  I don’t think I’ve had the same roast twice in a row.

In a hot cast iron pan with the fire on low, dump in your beans. Don’t add oil or anything, just your hot cast iron pan is all you’re going to be using here!

With a wooden spoon, stir continuously!  Now that I’ve gotten a little more experienced, I leave the beans sit for a few minutes until I start hearing some noise, that’s my cue to start stirring.  This gives me a roast that has some very deep, dark beans and some that aren’t quite so dark, leaving many levels of flavor.

You will go through different crack stages.  You will not end up with a perfectly even roast with every bean.  This is just a few minutes into the roasting.  Continue stirring. 

It will start to make popping/cracking noises.  It scared me the first time it happened, but it doesn’t really do anything – not like popcorn.  You will see chaff coming off of the beans.  Right on track!  As they turned darker, you could see the oils coming out more.

Empty into a colander.  Take outside and shake the colander.  All of the chaff will fly out! I found this old deep fryer basket at a yard sale — it works perfect!

See the chaff left in the pan?  It looks like the skin of peanuts.

There’s a great chart for the color of the beans as they go from green to as dark as charcoal. Those beans that I let get darker at the very beginning end up being a 3rd crack, a very dark, dark bean.

Here is a before and after of my beans.  I lost 1 1/2 ounces, but look how much bigger the roasted bean is!

You can put them in a jar now, but don’t put the lid on for at least 10 hours, they are continuing to lose carbon dioxide.  You will smell the roast and it will get stronger the longer you leave it sit!

I fill my little coffee grinder up every single morning with fresh home roasted beans to make my pot of coffee.

Beautiful home roasted, home ground coffee!!!

Go ahead, try it!

You can also find Cindy at
Chippewa Creek ~ Our Life Simplified.

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