99Limited
Founding Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2011
- Messages
- 1,227
- Reaction score
- 4
Some how my French Press question lead to home coffee roasting courtesy of PT. So with Pensacola Tiger's suggestion I bought a Behmor 1600 roaster, which in itself was no small feat since it's sold out at all but one online place and it took me a while to find them. I guess 1st-Line Equipment doesn't pay Google to push them up the results column. So anyway, got my roaster the next because the company is located here in Jersey, 30 miles from my house. Then I bought some good green coffee beans from Sweet Maria's and some practice beans from Amazon since I have a Prime membership and I could get that order quick. I got my practice beans today, unpacked the roaster and proceeded to roast my first batch of coffee.
When you do something for the first time you're sometimes a little apprehensive because you don't know what to expect. Well my first batch of coffee was roasting away, getting near the end of the roasting cycle. I'm listening for the first crack and there it goes. Kind of sounds like Rice Krispies, takes me back to when I was a kid. Clock tic, tic... Then I remember reading, "Second crack will crackle faster than first crack. Don't go beyond 10 seconds into second crack." Oh s#!t Abort, abort. Well actually you just press the Cool button and let the machine do its thing. Ten minutes later, everything is cooled down and I take the beans out of the roaster. Well, the beans turned out better than I expected. Actually I didn't know what to expect.
I compared my freshly roasted beans against the beans that I had on hand. My beans weren't quite as dark, but not bad for the try. Let's do this again. Second batch goes in, turn on the machine, start roasting. Then I remembered watching a video on how to circumvent the machine's timer limitation. So I thought, okay first batch wasn't long enough, let's go for it!!! After all, I'm standing right there. So I extend the time and we're roasting away. Aw, there's the Rice Krispies sound again. Don't touch anything. After all what's the worst that can happen, burn the house down. So sure enough the Rice Krispies sound subsides and the next thing I know there's this softer, faster crackling sound, kind of like the sound a campfire makes when you stir the embers. So there's the second crack. Press the Cool button and wait.
Do you believe in Beginner's Luck? I sure in the hell do. Second batch looks pretty good. I'll find out in the morning. Will batch number three turn out the same? Probably not.
So rahimlee54, you were wondering if there was a learning curve. There can be if you want to get complicated with your roasting, but you don't have to. And for any of you that have thought about home coffee roasting. Do it. No more grocery store coffee, no more trekking to the local roaster.
Thanks PT for putting that bug in my ear. I am now free from the mediocre grocery coffee and high priced specialty coffee roasters. :bliss:
When you do something for the first time you're sometimes a little apprehensive because you don't know what to expect. Well my first batch of coffee was roasting away, getting near the end of the roasting cycle. I'm listening for the first crack and there it goes. Kind of sounds like Rice Krispies, takes me back to when I was a kid. Clock tic, tic... Then I remember reading, "Second crack will crackle faster than first crack. Don't go beyond 10 seconds into second crack." Oh s#!t Abort, abort. Well actually you just press the Cool button and let the machine do its thing. Ten minutes later, everything is cooled down and I take the beans out of the roaster. Well, the beans turned out better than I expected. Actually I didn't know what to expect.
I compared my freshly roasted beans against the beans that I had on hand. My beans weren't quite as dark, but not bad for the try. Let's do this again. Second batch goes in, turn on the machine, start roasting. Then I remembered watching a video on how to circumvent the machine's timer limitation. So I thought, okay first batch wasn't long enough, let's go for it!!! After all, I'm standing right there. So I extend the time and we're roasting away. Aw, there's the Rice Krispies sound again. Don't touch anything. After all what's the worst that can happen, burn the house down. So sure enough the Rice Krispies sound subsides and the next thing I know there's this softer, faster crackling sound, kind of like the sound a campfire makes when you stir the embers. So there's the second crack. Press the Cool button and wait.
Do you believe in Beginner's Luck? I sure in the hell do. Second batch looks pretty good. I'll find out in the morning. Will batch number three turn out the same? Probably not.
So rahimlee54, you were wondering if there was a learning curve. There can be if you want to get complicated with your roasting, but you don't have to. And for any of you that have thought about home coffee roasting. Do it. No more grocery store coffee, no more trekking to the local roaster.
Thanks PT for putting that bug in my ear. I am now free from the mediocre grocery coffee and high priced specialty coffee roasters. :bliss:
But next Christmas is coming up fast... If it only were easier to get green beans out here, officially it's illegal to send them here (protecting the Kona growers). Anyway, keep reporting on how it turns out. 
