I get asked pretty often about home coffee roasting.
There is already quite a lot of good information online about roasting your own and I’ll point you in the right direction rather than trying to encapsulate it all.
The alpha and omega of home roasting on the internet is Tom Owen’s Sweet Marias. Tom sells a really awesome array of green coffees, shares his copious and insightful cupping notes, and offers information and equipment for the budding home roaster. Poking around that website will give you a good dose of how deep the rabbit hole goes when it comes to a real love for coffee.
As a guy who roasts coffee on serious heavy-duty commercial roasters, I tend towards skepticism that great results can be achieved with a converted popcorn popper or countertop electric roaster. After all, you can’t expect to reproduce Pizza Bianco at home on an EZ Bake oven. But that said, fresh home roasted coffee done reasonably well still beats the pants off most anything on your typical grocery aisle - particularly when you start with extraordinary beans.
Home roasting may not be for everyone, but for those living far from great artisan roasters or for coffeegeeks who just want to experience another aspect of the bean, it can be rewarding.
and when you want the “alpha and omega of home roasting on the internet” on this side of the pond, look no further than Steve Leighton’s http://www.hasbean.co.uk
And for those of you who want to go organic, Seven Bridges Coop has organic unroasted coffee beans in addition to their usual home brewing beer fare.
sweetmarias.com is the first and last stop for home roasters in the U.S. to be sure.
Was using a HotTop for awhile but have downsized to a Alpenrost. Very reliable and produces great, consistent roasts.
The real problem with a popcorn popper is that you have no control over the roasting curve. That said, you can still get a cup of coffee that is better than anything you’ve ever had if you have never tried fresh roasted coffee (wait a few days after roasting for optimum flavor).