When we lived in Austin, we roasted our own using a Fresh Roast Plus machine. I loved it. My husband wasn’t patient enough (before having his coffee, of course) to enjoy watching the roaster carefully, tweaking roast times, etc., and as he’s usually the first one up and the one who makes coffee, we drifted away from roasting. That particular roaster only holds a day or two’s worth of beans at a time.
Like **Fritz **says, there is a huge amount of smoke generated, especially if you like dark roasts. Even though the smoke smells delicious, it is smoke, and oily smoke at that, and it’s not something you want in the house regularly. We solved this in Austin by always running the machine on our covered front porch. I’ve read message board discussions saying that you can’t roast outside with the Fresh Roast Plus in colder climates because it can’t make up the heat loss, but I’d think it would work in Orlando.
Be warned, though, that if you roast outside, your neighbors will become curious about that fantastic amazing coffee fragrance…
I have friends who adopted an Ethiopian child. Apparently there’s some kind of Ethiopian tradition that you roast green coffee beans just before serving them, which they’ve learned to do to make her feel more at home. Even with relatively cheap green beans, tossing them around in a dry cast iron frying pan until they’re almost black, grinding them, pouring hot water over them, then pouring through a strainer–the whole experience, drinking the coffee with a house filled with the fragrance of roasting–is just magical. And it doesn’t take very long. Once you’ve discovered how easy it is, you’ll never do it any other way. And I’m sure with some effort you can track down a source for really good unroasted beans.
To me, it’s only after roasting that I get that classic “fresh roasted” aroma. During roasting, the aroma is not unpleasant, but it did surprise me the first time as it was unlike anything that I was expecting.
Also, I roast on my front or back deck (depending on weather) even during last winter, and had no problems with generating enough heat, however Georgia doesn’t get as cold as New England or Wisconsin.
I wasn’t kidding about setting off smoke detectors, though. The first time, I set the roaster directly in front of my fireplace thinking that any smoke generated would go up the flue. That didn’t work, and I found that I had more smoke detectors than I knew about!
If you do roast your own, be assured that you will get raves about the coffee, especially if you brew via French Press…
The only downside is that my wife and I are quite spoiled now.
On preview, lissener mentions sources for good green beans. Sweet Maria’s is a great source - easy to order and very high quality. Also, the site has some excellent info on general coffee roasting.
There are lots of others sites too.
Agreed. I’ve only had Jamaican Blue Mountain once but it was fantastic, just fantastic. I think anyone who enjoys coffee would be more than pleased by such a cool gift.
To the OP: sorry about the slight hijack - I’m just so jazzed about home roasting. The Jamaican Blue Mountain and Hawaiian Kona Peaberry, home roasted or not, would be a wonderful gift.
