Home Roasted Coffee

I love coffee. I think I love it as much for the nostalgia and comfort it give me as the robust taste and promised pick-me-up. Coffee holds a special place in the history of this country and in homestead tradition. Think of cast-iron pots bubbling with cowboy coffee as settlers huddle up inside covered wagons, waiting for the warm roasted beverage to give them the boost of energy needed for the day's travel. Swirling in the center is a clump of egg and sometimes shells to collect the loose grounds (see recipe below). Picture a 1950's kitchen and picture-perfect housewife. The smell of coffee in the air each morning brings the family to breakfast and to the percolator, its glass cap offering a peek at the rich coffee bubbling inside.
All of these images have cultivated my curiosity into this beverage and how it is created. Most of us go to the grocery store and grab a can of ground coffee, spoon it into a plastic coffee maker, pour in the water and presto, we have coffee. My interest always centers on what it take make a product, rather than buy it at the store. Is it possible to make my own roasted coffee? Yes! It is easy and affordable and I want to show you how.

Ingredient:


The first thing you need is some green coffee beans. Raw beans have a grayish-green hue and you can buy them affordably online. There are several vendors and if you Google "green coffee beans" you will find dozens. These days we are buying more and more online so why not buy your coffee online too? The good thing about these raw beans is that they last practically forever. You could buy them in bulk and roast them as needed. This is a huge advantage as preground coffee in the supermarket will go stale in days.

Equipment:


This is where the online stores will try to get you. There are tons of attractive, scientific looking coffee roasters...each one promising to give you the perfect roast. The real homesteader, in my opinion, is constantly concerned with balancing extremely high quality with frugality. We all want the best but we don't want to pay a fortune to do something ourselves. If we had that kind of money, we could order a ton of roasted Starbucks beans (NOT that I think that is the highest quality). Homesteader...you are in luck. I have found a very inexpensive solution to the coffee roaster. It will produce high quality roasted beans but leave some in your wallet as well. Are you ready?

The average, everyday POPCORN POPPER!!!!

This works perfectly and costs a fraction of the price of a coffee roaster. You will also need a coffee grinder. I don't have a cheaper solution to this one. Sorry.

Method:
You can use about a half cup of beans at a time in the popcorn popper. This may mean doing a couple of batches but you should have plenty of roasted beans within a half hour. This should be done outside as the beans will produce some smoke and chaff. All you need to do is put the green beans in the popcorn popper as you would the corn. Turn on the machine and place a large bowl beneath the chute. Sometimes a stray bean will pop out and you will want to catch it and put it back in.
As the beans go and get warm, a papery chaff will come off and blow out of the popper. This is normal and you can just let the wind carry it away. Watch the beans as they turn from green to blonde to golden. This process takes a while (maybe 10 minutes) but the final stage can go quickly and it is easy to burn the beans. They will start to turn dark brown and the amount of chaff will decrease. Keep and eye and let the beans roast to the color you like. After a couple of batches, you will be able to tell whether to let them go longer or to stop sooner. When they are done, turn off the popper and dump the beans into a bowl or baking pan. You want to cool the beans quickly because they will continue to cook and may still burn if you don't. I recommend putting them in a bowl and placing them in the refrigerator.

Now you have roasted coffee and all you need to do is grind.

Thanks for reading and please leave a comment. I would love to know your tips and tricks with roasting coffee. Below is a recipe taken from Mrs. Seely's Cook Book copyright 1902.

Boiled Coffee

Use as much ground coffee as is needed, allowing one tablespoon of coffee to one cup of boiling water. Place on the range, and when it comes to a boil, uncover and remove from the fire. Let it stand two or three minutes, then cover it, and replace over the fire. The instant it boils, remove and let it stand five minutes.  It is then ready to serve.  Sometimes an egg is beaten up and with a little cold water is mixed with the coffee before the boiling water is poured on.  This is to clear it.