What goes together like emergency room nurses and coffee?  In fact, coffee is one of the four food groups: Coffee, chocolate, butter, and alcohol!  There is only one thing that will bring an ER to a close faster than a mass casualty incident, and that is running out of coffee.

I've been doing some research lately and have come across several great internet sites dedicated to coffee.  During my reading I learned that coffee beans, once roasted, are only good for a week to ten days.  Who knew?  After coffee is roasted, it immediately starts to off gas carbon dioxide.  As the CO2 leaves the roasted beans, the flavor changes and matures.  Once all the CO2 is gone, the flavor goes flat or stale.  There is less of that delicious coffee flavor.

When I was growing up in a trailer park in Florida, one of my 'uncle's', gave me the secret to good coffee.  He called me over to the kitchen counter and taught me how to make instant coffee for him.  After putting in the recommended one teaspoon of instant coffee, he scooped out a second half of a teaspoon and stirred that in there too. 

"That", he said, "is what makes it good!"

We purchased a new coffee maker that actually grinds the beans all by itself.  It's a Cuisinart and really felt like I had reached the top of the heap when I bought it a few months ago.  I mean, it actually grinds the beans!  I thought I was in high cotton just to be drinking Folgers drip coffee and not instant.

After spending some time online and learning how fast the roasted beans go flat, I discovered that you can actually roast  coffee beans right in your home.  The world is spinning out of control and I can barely hold on.

There are several methods that can be used by the home roaster.  One of the more popular methods is to use a hot air popcorn popper.  You can get fancy with it by adding timer and switches and thermostats or you can just dump the beans in the top and wait for them to turn the right color.

Another way is to stir a pot of beans in a skillet on the stove top.  Well I found a stove top popcorn popper with a paddle that reaches through the lid down into the pan and has hand crank for stirring the kernels.  I found it at the Goodwill store while looking for an air popper.

I looked at five different thrift stores before I found this thing.  I never did find an air popper.  If anyone else wants one there were several more at the Thrift store on Almaden Expressway in San Jose.  They looked brand new and were still in the packaging.  I paid $7.99.



I purchased some green coffee from www.sweetmarias.com.  They have a large selection of coffee.  I purchased a sampler pack of green coffees beans.  With so many different kinds of coffee I better try a few before I settle on something. 

Here is the sampler pack from Sweet Maria's:


I also purchased a thermometer from a fancy pants cooking store called Sur Le Table at Santana Row.  They have everything there. 

You can do this procedure inside if you want.   There was a lot of smoke toward the end and you have to get rid of the chaff when you cool down the beans so I figured it would be better to move everything outside to the grill which has a side burner.  It's less mess this way.

Here we are, getting ready to go:


I turned the flame on high and waited for the temperature to climb to 400 degrees in the pan.  This took about 3 minutes.

Then I put the beans in the pan and stirred!  Simple.  

Beans go in:



Just stir and stir and stir.  "First crack" is when the beans start making a poping noise like popcorn popping.   This started at about the 10 minute mark.

First crack is starting:


Anytime after the first crack, the beans are considered done.  The longer you roast them, the darker they get.  For the most part, the darker they get, the less of the distict characteristics of the individual type of  coffee is left and the stronger the "roast" flavor is imparted.  When the crack just starts, it is condered a light city roast.

Handily, on the lable to each type of bean, Maria gave instructions on which level of roast worked best with that particular coffee.  How sweet!

At the risk of copyright infringement I am lifting a short section off Sweet Maria's website discussing the various roast levels and their names:

Roast Names

Here is Sweet Maria's list of roast names from lightest to darkest:

1. Light Cinnamon

Very light brown, dry , tastes like toasted grain with distinct sour tones, baked, bready

2. Cinnamon

Light brown and dry, still toasted grain with distinct sour acidy tones

3. New England

Moderate light brown , still sour but not bready, the norm for cheap Eastern U.S. coffee

4. American or Light

Medium light brown, the traditional norm for the Eastern U.S .

5. City, or Medium

Medium brown, the norm for most of the Western US, good to taste varietal character of a bean.

6. Full City

Medium dark brown with some slight oily drops, good for varietal character with a little bittersweet.

7. Light French, or Espresso

Moderate dark brown with oily drops, light surface oil, more bittersweet, caramelly flavor, acidity muted.

8. French

Dark brown oily, shiny with oil, also popular for espresso; burned undertones, acidity diminished

9. Italian or Dark French

Very dark brown very shiny, burned tones become more distinct, acidity almost gone.

10. Spanish

Very dark brown, nearly black and very shiny, charcoal tones dominate, flat.


These correlate to how far along into the first or second crack you go.  The second crack sounds more like fat frying, very fast and crackly.   This is when the coffee oils start to come out and the sugars are carmelizing, making a darker and darker roast.

So now the beans have reached what Maria says is the best level of roast for these guys so I pulled them off the heat to cool them in a collender.  I cascaded them between a metal bowl and a plastic collender to bring them down to room temperature and to let the chaff blow away.  This stops the roast.

Here they go into a collender:

Can't you just smell that aroma?  They are very mild and fruity at this level of roast.

Let's grind some up.   The instructions say the flavor develops as the CO2 gasses off the beans.   They should rest for at least 4 hours before you use them.  Each bean and roast will develop at a different rate and some will continue to get better and better for up to 10 days before they start to go stale and turn into grocery store coffee.

I am committing some small heresy by using a whirly blade coffee grinder.  The true coffee afficianados will tell you that any coffee grinder that cost less than $300 is not fit to grind pepper.  They use strictly burr grinders with Italian names.  I however have only recently moved up to fresh roasted coffee so I will try not to ruin it with my blade coffee grinder.  Please don't tell on me.

Grind 'em up!:


Do you think I could wait for 4 hours to make coffee?  Hell no!  I have no such will power.

I made a cup for me and for my partner, Jimmy.

Jimmy likes!:



The Kenyan coffee was very  bright flavored with an acidy, almost fruity flavor like an apricot.  I can't wait for it to mature.  I took my cup of coffee back out to the grill and made several more batches with some of the other beans.

They each had a different level of recomended roast.   While I can't say I nailed them, I can say that they are at different levels! 

The art of coffee roasting is all about the trade off between the roast flavor and the bean flavor.  To bring out each bean's best flavor you must roast it just right.

While I'm no expert after 3 batches, I can say that the process was incredibly easy, fun, and instructional.  One thing I love to do is learn something new!  

Why don't you try to roast some coffee?  Then we can get together for a tasting!

Best regards,
EmergencyDpt