In reply to Hoondavan :
When you start buying in 60lb bags decent quality beans come in around $4-$5/lb. Then you lose ~20% of the green weight as moisture loss. Restaurant space overhead, bagging, branding, and expensive, specialized machinery all comes together to make the general rule of thumb sale price COGS x3. The smallest business-viable roaster (outside of niche cases) is a 5kg and that easily puts you in off-lease new car money territory. There's a lot of behind the scenes cost.
As for being downwind, when I fire up my little popper it smells delightful. Like roasted coffee, for some reason.... Maxwell is more than likely using an afterburner for emissions and I can't imagine that doing good things for the smell.
I like roasting my own purely because it's always fresh, even when I buy in bulk, and tastes better than anything I've bought from a grocery store. I haven't tried BRCC but I also haven't bought roasted coffee in over a year.
I dont drink coffee, and therefore have no opinion on taste, prep, or any of the things discussed here. That being said, i have a coffee maker for when friends and family come to visit, and used to keep some dunkin donuts coffee on hand, because that was the preferred brew of my folks, and they get special treatment.
I have switched to black rifle coffee because their commercials alone are worth it to me, and i like the message behind the company (vet owned, helping vets and firsts responders):
In reply to Error404 :
How long will "green" beans keep? I had a coworker offer me his countertop roaster for free...but he changed his mind. I've debated buying a roasting cage for my propane grill just to give it a try.
I considered roasting beans live at my local farmers market and selling fresh coffee...but there's already another coffee maker there. And, I just haven't been that motivated.
The owner of Death Wish Coffee is a friend-of-a-friend of mine. I haven't seen him in ~8 years or so and never spoke much about business with him, but he turned his small cafe into a decent size business (winning a free superbowl ad in a contest helped). I've only had his coffee once or twice.
They see me roastin. They hatin.
Did two roasts today from the same espresso stock. First one was about City (after first crack) and the second one was just after peak second crack. I'd call it Vienna/French, but I'm 6000% new to this so I might not have a clue.
Tomorrow morning, the four-way blind taste test happens. Two of my stalwart utility coffees (Komodo Dragon and Bustello) versus the City and Vienna/French I roasted this morning.
I do have to say, the beans smell amazing. The City roast smells like I flavored it with caramel. That's not an exaggeration like when they say "notes of caramel." I mean it smells like half coffee and half caramel. The darker roast smells like heaven and orgasms. Can't wait to try them.
I forgot to ask, did the fog chaser show up?
In reply to Steve_Jones :
Yes! As much as I usually mix different blends, the Fog Chaser has been my daily grind for the last ~3 months. It's tough to beat at the price.
I bought a two pound bag of Mayorga when I braved Costco for the bulk items today. Last week I'd picked up a can of Bustelo during the regular grocery trip.
If Bustelo came in whole bean, it'd probably be my favorite.
Steve_Jones said:
I forgot to ask, did the fog chaser show up?
Actually, no but I figured you got busy and forgot. I do have a pile of boxes from Rock Auto and Summit Racing... I wonder if its in one of those and I assumed it was a heater core or spark plugs.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
It's in the pile, or a neighbor stole it :)
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
I'm very interested to see how you like the coffee you roasted. The startup price on this is surprisingly low the way you did it.
In reply to Flynlow (Forum Supporter) :
As I've gotten familiar with Black Rifle, I find that I'm inclined to buy some of their product. As a commodity, their price is too high. But when you factor in the support of hardworking veterans who have made sacrifices for their country, it goes a long way to justifying the cost. We need to be aware of where the money we spend goes; who it benefits. And for me, Black Rifle is the kind of people I'd like to support. And their videos are hilarious.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:
They see me roastin. They hatin.
Did two roasts today from the same espresso stock. First one was about City (after first crack) and the second one was just after peak second crack. I'd call it Vienna/French, but I'm 6000% new to this so I might not have a clue.
Tomorrow morning, the four-way blind taste test happens. Two of my stalwart utility coffees (Komodo Dragon and Bustello) versus the City and Vienna/French I roasted this morning.
I do have to say, the beans smell amazing. The City roast smells like I flavored it with caramel. That's not an exaggeration like when they say "notes of caramel." I mean it smells like half coffee and half caramel. The darker roast smells like heaven and orgasms. Can't wait to try them.
Roasting coffee beans with a popcorn popper? Have I been living under a rock? That looks a lot like my popper. An intial search indicates I some popper designs may be a fire risk (!). I'm going to have to try this.
Ok. Back to back, I did Bustelo espresso, Komodo Dragon, and my light-medium roast and my dark roast. Had to carefully stagger things because I only own two french presses.
I did Bustelo and Komodo first, then poured them into preheated mugs while I set up the presses for my lighter and my dark. That way I could leisurely test the first two while the second two were brewing.
I had never compared Bustelo espresso and Komodo side by side before. I'm actually a little disapointed in Bustelo when I put them immediately beside something else. I never thought I'd prefer mass-produced mermaid McCoffee to a proper Espresso blend.
Next up were my two roasts. Both came from Sweet Maria's Monkey espresso blend. (which confused me... I thought espresso was a roast) After 24 hours of "breathing," the dark roast smelled like a freshly opened bag of the best coffee you've ever smelled. The lighter roast smelled exactly like I had just opened a novelty caramel-flavored coffee. I'm not saying, "it had caramel and buttery notes," I'm saying it straight up smelled like I put caramel in it. The brew had modest caramel notes (which makes sense... there are caramelized sugars in roasted coffee), but it was just straight up delicious. It was lacking a little bit of the heavier body I'm used to with darker roasts, but overall it was delicious. The darker roast I did was just barely getting little bits of oil on the outside. It did have an amazing flavor, but it was notably more bitter than I'm used to.
I'm used to opening a bag of dark roast coffee, seeing shiny oily beans, and it is just how I like it. I was surprised that my "dark" roast had almost none of that oil, and wasn't as dark in appearance as Komodo for instance, and yet it tasted a little TOO roasted.
This morning I had just enough of the lighter and dark left to make a pot in the drip machine so I mixed them together. Darn fine cups of coffee.
The net result is that in my first two attempts, I made coffee that easily rivaled my two favorite go-to OTC blends. I can't imagine how it will taste when I actually become a coffee whisperer and get the roast just right.
Hoondavan said:
Roasting coffee beans with a popcorn popper? Have I been living under a rock? That looks a lot like my popper. An intial search indicates I some popper designs may be a fire risk (!). I'm going to have to try this.
They're all a fire hazard. They make super hot air which will light most organic stuff on fire. The only reason they don't catch popcorn on fire is because it ejects them after they pop. Coffee beans just stay there the whole time.
The poppers that swirl the air are best. The ones that shoot air up from the bottom don't work as well. If you look down in mine, the bottom is solid and the sides have louvers that shoot the air around instead of up.
The secret is just to watch it. If they start smoking, you basically went a bit to far on the roast, and not far enough for them to ignite.
I REALLY don't need another hobby, but. Can the popper still be used for popcorn after roasting coffee?
In reply to Aaron_King :
I would assume so. After 5 batches, mine looks just like day one. It's not stained with coffee or anything.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Cool, off to order some green coffee.
What!!?! Did my coffee roasting worlds and my car hobby worlds just collide? So awesome. I have roasted coffee for about 3 years now. I started with old popcorn poppers bought from second-hand stores and modified them with rheostats and thermoprobes and connected software to chart the roast progress. I moved on to building a roaster out of an old bread machine and a heat gun with thermoprobes and Roastmaster software. I could never achieve the level of control I wanted so I took the plunge and bought a Allio Bullet R1 roaster. Six months in and I am fully in love with the process and making plans to start my own business. Beware Curtis73, the rabbit hole is deep!
To stay true to the original intent of thread I will recommend roasted coffee from Onyx Coffee Lab in Bentonville, AR. I blame them for starting me on this coffee journey.
Ok, so i finally tried the popcorn popper method and the flavor is amazing. I'll probably roast them a little lighter next time, but it was worth the effort. 
Yes! Another convert. Welcome to the flock.
I have been taking mine through first crack and stopping with the first second crack. I did a few batches well into second crack, but some research showed me that this inexpensive home-roasting technique lacks the ultimate heat control to make really dark roasts taste like a commercial espresso or italian roast. To get those oily, dark beans like you find when you open a bag of Starbucks, it takes slow heating for part of the time and fast heating for another part of the time. I think some commercial roasters also use CO2 to prevent oxidizing (burning) some of the compounds.
The few really dark roasts I've tried at home were more bitter than I expected which corroborates that discovery.
But I don't care. It's all been wonderful - light roast, medium roast, medium dark... it's delicious. Just yesterday I had a guy come out to give me a driveway paving estimate and he accepted a cup of coffee. He went all Samuel L Jackson Pulp Fiction on me. "damn... I'm no snob, but I can recognize a good cup. What brand is this?"
I already ordered another 4 lbs of raw. I've been giving away mason jars of my roasts as gifts. I think my new neighbor is my new best friend. I took the family a jar of that when they moved in and the next morning I got a knock and two homemade pies.
Every time someone compliments my coffee, I'm like:
And then like:
Torkel
Reader
5/31/20 12:32 p.m.
I like Lavazza espresso and I always make it in my moka. For the ultimate weekend treat: mix 50/50 with Amarula (but perhaps not for breakfast).
Not a favorite at this point, but I got 16 oz. of whole bean Rwanda, roasted like yesterday from a small local roaster. the stuff is kind of reddish in color, and the taste is ... well... different. Unlike any coffee I've had before, and I've had quite a few. I liked the Kenya AA I've had in the past, but this is nothing like that.
Anyone familiar with a proper Rwandan coffee? How would you describe the flavor?
Rwanda is a bit new to the coffee market (when I say new, I mean 30 years or so). They had been a bit isolated from the coffee trade (mass genocide and all keeping them mostly out of the trade industry until the 80s). They used to be big in the cheap, mass-production of cheap Arabica, but got out of it for reasons I cite below.
Much of their coffee is grown at higher altitudes, and much of it has a very distinct flavor. More floral and tea-like.
Rwanda used to be a big player in the cheap coffee international trade, but with the civil genocide and international coffee prices taking a nose dive, they stopped producing export quantities. After the war was over, many farms went back to coffee for income. So they used to consider it a big part of their GDP, then they quit the biz, now it's coming back on a more private, individual level. Because Rwanda doesn't have a centralized coffee industry, most of it is sold privately by individual farms meaning the flavor can vary a great deal like buying beef from the grocery store vs buying it from an Amish farmer. Whereas somewhere like Guatemala has a few government-operated farms that might be 500,000 acres each, Rwanda has (literally) 500,000 privately-owned farms that might only be an acre or less. They're not measured by size, they're measured by the number of trees and average around 100 per farm.
Rwanda cherries are nearly always wet-fermented as opposed to dry fermentation done by most coffee producers. Not a huge difference, but dry-fermentation simply means they remove the cherry leaving just the wet seed to ferment. Wet fermentation means they ferment the whole cherry after it has been mashed up, then separate the seeds out for drying. Wet fermentation brings more of the flavors from the fruit to the brew... some people like it, others don't.
