Roasting coffee is easy and anybody can do it! It’s as simple as making popcorn because it’s the exact same process. The coffee bean reaches a certain temperature in which the water inside the bean expands and becomes a gas. This expansion pops or “cracks” the coffee bean. During this process there are over 1,000 chemical substances created that we can smell, taste, and feel as an effect inside our brains and bodies.
Coffee can be roasted with simple equipment most people already have in their kitchen (a wok or frying pan), or else purchase from an increasingly wide selection of home coffee roasting machines. If roasting with a wok or pan over a fire or electric heating element, there are some results from the roasting you will have to deal with.
- Smoke (which can easily set off alarms if roasting in your kitchen).
- Chaff (these are the papery skin coverings of the coffee bean and can make a mess in your kitchen if you are not careful).
- Evenness of the roast. To get a nice even roast, which is preferred, you must keep the coffee beans moving over the heat source. Like with cooking anything do not let the coffee sit in the bottom of the pan while only one side is being cooked.
That is all there is to it. If you want to avoid the issues above you can purchase a home roasting machine that has already addressed these issues. Prices of home machines range from around $175 – $1,000’s. Stick to the lower end of the range. Machines with more bells and whistles do not add anything to the end result.
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