On my last day in the beautiful sunshine state I am treated to a new experience...home roasting coffee beans!
If you think the only talents coming from 3DD are rocket launching you are wrong, VERY wrong. RocketBoy is also a bean roaster. Pretty cool, another time perhaps we will delve into some of the many other talents he has, but not today. Today we will focus on coffee bean roasting.
It all began with a bag of 'raw beans' In all honesty I had never seen an "un"roasted raw coffee bean before! Well, now I can't say that anymore cause now I have! And really, they look a little like the beans that you make into ham and beans to me!
The ham and bean look stage...kinda funny, in my brain, since they are vegetarian : p
So, onto the roasting...you measure out a cup of the beans (cause that's what his roaster holds, in case you might be wondering!) and pop them into the little roaster and turn it on. You will want to do this outside. Why you may ask, well, the roasting process is somewhat odorous and you don't want to have that lingering around in your house so take it from me, do your roasting out of doors!! This roaster had a timer and depending on how much roast you want on your bean you set it for more or less time. These beans were supposed to be dark roast, however the high humidity on this day interfered with the roasting process and they did not go so dark. Which worked out really well for me because since they didn't 'go dark' like they were supposed to
I was the beneficiary of these freshly roasted beans : )
All right on the more roasting data! After they roast there is a bit of "mess" left in the roaster, kind of like the chaff that is left after you thresh wheat. The beans left behind a "skin" and other small particulate matter (like I really know what that means, but it sounds appropriate dontcha think? so I'm using it :) But now the beans are a lovely shade of brown and have a nice little bit of shine to them, oh and they are now split. They resemble what you see in the Millstone bins at your local grocery store. However, I was a bit surprised they did not have that strong coffee smell like you might have imagined from freshly roasted beans, there was only a slight subtle hint of coffee aroma.
All done, such a nice color!
Here the beans are resting...since they were just whirled and heated til they popped, they are plum tuckered out!
Freshly roasted beans should be left to
rest for 24 hours before you grind them...this is when you can really get the coffee aroma; after they are ground! They were very 'smelly' in a good way! Even though we double bagged them for transport, my entire suitcase smelled of fresh brewed coffee when I opened it! It was a lovely aroma in my mind. And since I arrived home late on Saturday night I did not open my luggage until Sunday mid-morning to rediscover my freshly ground beans! Since the day's coffee had already been made it was not until Monday morning after my return that we were able to enjoy the freshly roasted and ground beans.
Hmmmm, I'm sure I cannot adequately describe the intense flavor they had, but this is what I thought, a very strong full bodied coffee with a somewhat earthy feel to it; not your everyday run of the mill cup of coffee taste for sure. This ain't Maxwell House or Folger's for sure! I had two cups, neither with cream, just a touch of sugar in the first cup but decided to be a purist on the cup number two and go straight up black. I enjoyed it! I think it would make a most awesomely perfect espresso for say an iced coffee or a caramel macchiato, I do not think I would be able to switch over to using this as my daily drinker, but I might...
All in all I think the whole idea of roasting your own beans is quite extraordinary; totally not sure I would ever take it on for myself, but I did enjoy seeing/smelling the process and being educated a bit about the coffee bean and how the whole process of coffee bean roasting works! Thanks RB!
Now go get your own cup a Joe and wonder if you might want to start roasting your own beans!
