{"id":596,"date":"2015-06-15T11:20:16","date_gmt":"2015-06-15T18:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/?p=596"},"modified":"2015-06-16T08:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T15:32:34","slug":"home-coffee-roasting-a-new-hobby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/home-coffee-roasting-a-new-hobby\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Coffee Roasting: A New Hobby"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, the contraption shown below is not a toaster oven. You can even watch the inventor shudder<\/a> online when told that his pride and joy resembles one. It’s a Behmor home coffee roaster, and is photographed atop my kitchen table ’cause it belongs to me. I have stunk up the garage with fumes from about fifteen roasts now, am fascinated enough by my new hobby to want to drone about it here.<\/p>\n

\"Tim's<\/a>
Behmor 1600+ coffee roaster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is a personal blog. I don’t have advertisers, don’t want any, write about whatever weirdsville subject catches my fancy.<\/p>\n

Today, it’s home coffee roasting.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Question #1: What is it?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The occasionally smoky and always odoriferous cooking up of raw green coffee beans.<\/p>\n

At left, below: some Ethiopia Agaro beans, fetched from a one pound bag sold by Sweet Maria’s coffee warehouse in West Oakland. Green little buggers, aren’t they? You wouldn’t try to put these guys in a coffee grinder, would you? No! They’re green. Raw. Unready.<\/p>\n

Few markets sell green coffee beans. Home roasters buy from Sweet Maria’s or other specialty suppliers.<\/p>\n

At right: a roast of Guatemala Finca Candeleria Bourboncito after a cruise in the Behmor.<\/p>\n

\"Green<\/a>
Green and roasted coffee beans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brown. Cooked. (If only you could smell<\/em> them a day after the roast, you unlucky instant drinker, you!) Ready for the burr grinder.<\/p>\n

Question #2: Why bother?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In coffee, freshness counts. A lot. The unroasted green beans can slumber contentedly for eons, but the browned, cooked bean retains full flavor for a matter of days.<\/p>\n

DAYS, folks. Cognoscenti differ<\/a> on how many<\/a>. I have tasted a difference after only three.<\/p>\n

The majors can angle for first dibs on crops, hire PhDs to craft roast curves, cook up beans on gazillion dollar hardware. They still can’t economically supply consumers with genuinely fresh roasted coffee beans. I don’t care how much they pay TruthStretchers Inc. to lean on a Fresh! Fresh! Fresh!<\/em> theme in an ad campaign. The roast date won’t be on the package, or will be printed in an eeny-weeny-teeny coded cipher that Betty BeanBuyer won’t see or understand. That bag of whole beans that Betty sticks in her cart might be months old.<\/p>\n

The home roaster bets that his genuinely fresh roasted beans will mop the floor with hopelessly stale commercial beans, PhDs and gazillion dollar hardware notwithstanding.<\/p>\n

Question #3: Is there a catch?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There are several.<\/p>\n