We recieved a couple of pounds of Kona coffee beans recently. It’s tasty, but too mild and weak for our tastes. Even the person who gave it to us agreed. Considering how pricey the stuff it, I really want to put it to good use, but frankly life in our household runs far more to "Double espresso! Charge to 450–Clear! than the relaxing after dinner moments beloved in coffee commercials.
At first I thought I might supplement its body with something heftier, but there’s too much risk of overpowering it-- what would be the point? This morning, had the bright idea of re-roasting it to coax out a little more oomph. I love to experiment in the kitchen (pretty much anywhere in my life, actually) and to my mind, an expensive ingredient used in an experiment -even a failed one- isn’t wasted. Of course, any proper experiment must be preceded by a review of the literature.
Is it practical to re-roast coffee, with good results? Any tips, tricks or pitfalls? I was thinking of using either the oven or a covered cast iron pan. (I think I’ve heard of people doing this.) If nothing else, it should fill the house with a great aroma. <Homer simpson>*Mmm. Coffee and donuts incense. *</homer>
Easiest solution I’ve found for dealing with “too weak and mild” coffee is to simply put more in than you normally would. So, instead of using 12 spoonfulls to make 12 cups of coffee, I’ll use 12 to make ten cups. That seems to give it the right amount of “kick” (though, if that’s not enough for me, I’ll add a dash of cayenne pepper) and saves the trouble of trying to reroast the coffee.
We did try that, but the results weren’t entirely what we’d hoped. That’s why I was hoping that a little darker roast might beef it up without wrecking whatever special qualities it might have – or taking it to “Full Seattle” (which is a waste of good beans in my book, even if Starbucks et alia built empires on it)
If I don’t hear anything (I’d assumed there would be some home-roasters out there) I’ll just have to try various small batches and report back
On the other hand, maybe I’m just not cut out for so-called ‘gourmet’ beans. I found Jamaican Blue Mountain a bit of a disappointment, too (so much that I questioned the quality of the beans I got), and I don’t have the requisite snooty disdain for flavored coffees. Coffee’s been my beverage of choice since I was 10 [1], but I’m not sure I like all the attention it gets today. The range of offerings at the supermarket are much better, but I wonder if that quality isn’t near the practical limit for cinsistency. Boutique offerings seem increasingly errati. And kopi luwak? That’s a dead giveaway that the connoisieurs are geting bored
[1] Back then kids weren’t supposed to drink coffee: I was the only one I knew who did, and I recall being refused coffee at a restaurants as late as my early teens! Some would’ve acted less miffed if I’d tried to sneak in an order for a beer.
[Ther’s not going to be a guide for Re-roasting coffee but it’s easy enough to experiment. I know several people who went through the phase of roasting their own every morning. You can just stir them around in a dry frying pan. Hot air popcorn poppers are supposed to work rather ideally too. Just do enough for a pot and see if it improves the flavor… if not just use more grounds as suggested.
I’d say you might want to switch sources for your coffee, as I’ve have had several different gourmet brands which were all excellent. (None of them being Starbucks or other “coffee house” chains.) Admittedly, I haven’t been able to shell out the kind of money that those brands demand in recent years, so it’s possible that their quality has declined since then.
I don’t think re-roasting already roasted coffee beans is going to give you something better. FWIW, I don’t really like Kona (or Jamaican) either. I don’t know why they are popular. I find them a bit too light and bright. I like more depth and richness, and I think Indonesian varieties are better. Of course, coffee is such a personal thing it’s difficult to generalize. What’s a great cup to one person is going to be boring and flat to another.
Anyway, while green beans can last almost indefinitely (well, not really, but a heck of a long time) once they are roasted, beans start going stale almost immediately. After about two weeks, they are going to be really flat. Maybe your Kona is just stale? Or maybe, like me, you just don’t like that light/bright type of coffee.
There was never a chance that you could go any other way. I’ve home roasted (and reroasted) coffee beans for years and it is always a trial an error deal until you get your techniques down and discover what works best for you and how dark you want your beans to be. For reroasting, I believe the oven method works best as this provides the most even heating. I also recommend you use a silpat baking sheet as this will help avoid scorching.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Put as many beans as you would normally use for a single cup of coffee on a cookie sheet with a silpat liner. Stir the beans every two minutes. Watch for the color you want. Remove the beans from the oven and air cool as quickly as possible. I put mine in a heavy collander so they get air circulation and give up their heat to the metal of the collander as well. Let them cool for four hours after roasting so they have a chance to stabilize.
For the first try, I would pull them pull them out the minute you notice any change in color at all and note how long they were in the oven. Let the cookie sheet cool completely before your next batch so your experiments are consistent.
Be aware that roasted coffee beans will give up their oils and volitiles much quicker than fresh beans and so there is always the chance that what you wind up with will actually have less flavor than what you started with.
Personally, I only reroast when I want to make French roast which I would not make from light flavored beans like Kona anyway.
If I wanted to give Kona more body, I would add maybe five percent beans of a good Bolivian or Columbian into the grinder along with the Kona.
I dunno about reroasting already-roasted beans, but I doubt it’d be worth it. Varietals, and the gentle ones like Kona or Blue Mountain even moreso, aren’t usually roasted very dark, because even at medium roasting (let alone if you turn it into French Roast) they stop showing their varietal characteristics. You’ll probably turn it into a pretty unremarkable medium roast if you manage to roast it successfully.
But you can do it in an oven or a pan, I think. If you google on roasting coffee, you’ll find pretty in-depth guides - there’s quite a few people who roast their own. It seems to me it’d be worth a try for a pot’s worth.
BTW, they say Blue Mountain, despite how dreadfully expensive it’s gotten lately, isn’t as good as it used to be. You’re not alone in disliking it. (I’ve always thought it was ok, but it never wowed me.)