How to Roast Coffee at Home

Coffee has been roasted and brewed since the 15th century. Today, I’ll show you how to roast coffee at home using two methods.

Watch the youtube video.

Before buying an expensive coffee roaster, my wife and I decided to try a $20 popcorn air popper. Obviously, not intended for this use, it still does the job.

The air popper we had could roast about 1/3 cup of green coffee beans at a time. Pour the beans in, replace the top and turn it on.

You will need a bowl to catch the chaff, the skin the comes off as the bean dries and expands.

This process takes about 5-6 minutes and requires monitoring the color of the beans as well as listening for cracks.

The first crack occurs at 385°F and is considered a light roast.

The second crack is around 435-437°F which is the beginning of a dark roast.

After Roasting is done, pour the beans into a metal colander to cool. Once cool, transfer to an airtight container, but wait 12 hours before sealing.

The beans give off CO2 for days after roasting, but mostly in the first few hours.

This method works fine, but only in small batches and over time the air popper will break down. Ours lasted about four months before it started smoking and melting.

At this point, we were hooked on roasting so we took the plunge and purchased a home coffee roaster.

There’s a lot of roasters to choose from, but we went for the Nesco Coffee Bean Roaster. This changed the game for us compared to using a popcorn air popper.

Using the Nesco is very easy. It comes with several washable parts.

A Roaster Chamber, a Chaff Cup with Screen and Front Seal and a Rear Seal.

The Roaster Chamber holds 5oz. of green coffee beans and features and auger drive to roast the beans evenly. Align the Roaster Chamber onto the Roaster Base.

The Chaff Cup sits in the top of the chamber to help collect the chaff as it circulates.

To start a roast, lift the cover and remove the Chaff Cup. Get the beans ready. We enjoy several brands of coffee and we scoop it from a 5lb. bag.

Pour the beans into the Roaster Chamber choosing the Fill Line or Dark Roast.

Replace the Chaff Cup and close the lid.

When turned on, the control panel automatically displays 20 minutes.

It has buttons for time, a Start button with a Red light for heating and a Cool button with a Green indicator light.

Hot air will flow in from the bottom of the base as the auger in the Roasting Chamber agitates the beans.

During the heating process, the beans will expand and double in size while losing about 28% weight loss due to the release of volatile compounds and water evaporation.

We prefer a light roast so this process takes us about twenty two minutes. Wait ten minutes for the Nesco to cool and then transfer your roasted coffee beans to an airtight container.

Remember to leave the lid off for twelve hours before sealing. The beans give off CO2 for many days after roasting, but mostly in the first few hours.

Our only cons with the Nesco are cleaning the chaff, which is still better than it flying around everywhere.

The cooling process during the last five minutes is very loud, but we put up with it because of the amazing roasting job that it does.

So, there’s two ways to roast coffee at home. Which ever method you choose, you can still take pride that your roasting your own coffee beans.

Watch the Youtube video!

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