Eley House Roasting

So Laura and I have been doing some research recently on how we could roast our own coffee at home.  The first thing we realized was that we don't have to buy a $500+ coffee roaster, which means that it was actually a financial possibility for us to dive in head first to home roasting.  We were relieved to find out we had the option to buy a $15 air popcorn popper or a $20 stove top popcorn popper.  Being more of a fan of the drum roasted coffees I have had rather than the air roasted coffees we got the stove top popper and started learning more about coffees, roasts and suppliers.

Sweetmarias.com is the website for a coffee shop and roasting company out of Oakland, CA.  They are a wealth of information on home roasting.  They have a YouTube channel that covers the look of the coffee bean at different stages of roasting, the sound it makes during roasting and many other useful topics.  One their website you can learn more about the stages of roasting and about their wide variety of coffees that you can roast.




Being excited and a little impatient I looked around the Springs to see if we could get unroasted coffee. So I found a place Friday and Saturday morning Laura and I headed out to pick it up and begin our roasting career :)

Unroasted Columbian coffee beans

Here is what the process looked like...

We ended up doing two roughly half pound batches.  I was a little gun shy on the first one and erred on the side of caution and pulled it right when the second crack started to make sure I didn't burn it.  That caution ended up with a roast that is roughly a Full City or a Full City+ roast.

When I went to make the second batch I felt a little more comfortable so I knew how much smoke to expect and how dark the beans will look in the pot compared to how dark they will look out in the light so we went for a darker roast.  This batch ended up being roughly a Vienna or Light French Roast

Now we just have to let it rest for a day to let the full flavor develop and allow all of the CO2 to release :)  We will report back with the taste test ASAP

What we have done recently

Here is some footage that finally got put together.  Aspen leaves changing, coffee on a camping stove, picture taking, hammocks and a drive through snowy mountains :)