Lunchtime Survey: Have You Ever Roasted Coffee at Home?

Our post on home coffee roasting mecca Sweet Maria's made us curious about our readers and roasting coffee at home. We remember when we first had a friend who did this. He used a hot air popcorn popper to regularly roast his own beans. Another good friend used one too, but he had to do all the roasting on the back porch because his pregnant wife couldn't stand the smell.

We leave our coffee roasting to the experts, but we're curious about your experiences. Do you like roasting your own coffee, how did you get into it, and how do you do it?

(Photos: Sweet Maria's, and Kena Coffee)

Comments (5)

I've roasted my own coffee for a little over four years now and I love it. I started because a couple of my friends roasted their own coffee and they raved about it. Here's what I love about it -- it offers such a wonderful sensory experience in its own right. The smell of roasting coffee -- from the grassy green of the green beans, to the popcorn smelling stage about a minute into the roasting until, finally, the smell of coffee begins permeating the room you're roasting in -- is one of my favorite smells. Ever.

My brother got me into it a few years ago. Started with a popcorn popper (West Bend Poppery II), and now I use a heat-gun and a metal dog bowl. I love getting to know the smells of the regional green coffees, as well as detecting the aromas that I will later taste in the cup, as the beans roast. Although some of my roasting friends dislike the smell of roasting coffee (or their wives do), I am blessed with a wife who loves the smell on me. In the end, it is a fun, inexpensive hobby that results in some of the best coffee ever.

Cannot say enough about home roasting. The best online resource for home roasters (just my opinion) is at www.sweetmarias.com - as noted, they not only sell select green beans but they are an acknowledged authority on just about everything homeroast / coffee related. I lurked on their site for weeks before pulling the trigger on my heatgun dog bowl (HGDB). Fantastic resource for a truly interesting, fun, and rewarding activity (it probably caters to the coffee-obsessed, but hey, you gotta have a hobby!). Go HGDB!

I use a Zach & Dani's roaster (now called Nesco). It is compact, and includes a catalytic converter so it doesn't smoke at all. It's great!

http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.NescoCoffeeRoaster.html