Here is my humble drum roaster for roasting coffee. It’s a steel can that I re-purposed by cutting, shaping, drilling, and riveting. It’s ugly, but I can say it works. Check out my coffee below.
In order to calibrate my roast, I put 2 and a half cups of fresh café oro (green unroasted coffee) and set the clock for 20 minutes at more or less 450 to 500 degrees F. There was furious cracking at the end of the time, and I quickly extracted the beans and cooled them by tossing them between two metal colanders. This also removes the chaff, which is a thin skin that surrounds the bean and flakes off during roasting. Usually, I don’t like my coffee so dark, but surprisingly it was delicious, full bodied, fresh, with a hint of smokiness. I expected it to be burnt tasting, but it was fabulous black, smooth, flavorful.
The next batch, I put in just 2 cups of café oro and set it for 17 minutes. By color alone, this batch came out more like what you find in the supermarket, a nice medium brown roast. Again, I cooled it, removed the chaff, and ground that sucker up to brew. This one tasted different. I’m no expert in all the adjectives, but it seemed like I could taste more of the coffee bean this time and less of the roast. The flavor was fuller but still smooth and drinkable. There was no hint of smokiness. It was equally fabulous, but different.
Side by side comparison of the color.
Next batch, I’m going for 18 and a half minutes.
Upcoming – next post on how the coffee cherry tea came out.