How to Freshly Roast Coffee Beans at Home_Coffee Bean Roasting Training and Teaching_Fresh Roasted Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

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Home Coffee Bean Roasting Without Professional Equipment

Even without professional roasting equipment, you can easily roast fresh coffee beans at home. While it may not achieve the same uniform quality as commercial roasters and flavor adjustments can be challenging, the advantage is that you can observe the roasting process and taste beans you've roasted yourself. Moreover, once you master the techniques, you can sometimes produce coffee beans with quite excellent flavor. The simplest tools include a hand roasting net, often used alongside small hand-crank roasters or household electric roasters.

Advantages of Hand Net Roasting

Hand net roasting is the most commonly used method among people who practice home roasting. With minimal cost and practice, you can achieve quite good results. Specialized roasting nets are available online, where the mesh and handle are integrated as one piece. The equipment is relatively inexpensive, allows intuitive heat adjustment, and enables you to observe the beans' transformation process visually while roasting, making it ideal for learning roasting techniques.

Disadvantages of Hand Net Roasting

During the process of moving over the flame, the hand net can easily deviate from the flame's position and is affected by surrounding air currents, making it difficult to maintain consistent heating of the beans. The beans may not expand properly and can develop astringent or harsh bitter flavors. Due to the unstable heat supply from hand net roasting, achieving good flavor consistently presents significant challenges. Furthermore, because it relies entirely on the roaster's personal judgment, it's difficult to achieve identical results each time.

Variables in Hand Net Roasting

While there's a fine line between difficulty and success, by properly adjusting several variables, you can still achieve excellent results. When hand net roasting, the condition of green beans, quantity, timing, flame size, and net height are all important variables. If these variables differ with each roasting session, the results will vary accordingly; therefore, you must strive to minimize these variables to achieve consistent results. First, prepare a specific amount of green beans according to your net's size. Since factors like moisture content and size of green beans are beyond individual control, consider these as inherent characteristics of the beans.

Although roasting time should be adjusted based on the condition of green beans, initially it's recommended to establish set times for equalization, first crack, and second crack, only adjusting the drop time (when roasting ends). By roasting according to predetermined times, you can develop a feel for heat adjustment. Therefore, when first attempting hand net roasting, it's better to set specific times and roast within those parameters.

Heat Adjustment

When hand net roasting, heat adjustment is the most challenging aspect. There are two methods to adjust heat: distance from the heat source or flame size; depending on how these are managed, results can vary significantly. If possible, try to fix one of these conditions. For example, "equalize for 10 minutes at 40cm above the heat source, then heat for 5 minutes at 20cm above the heat source"—recording details like this increases the likelihood of reproducing similar flavors.

Heat Sources for Hand Net Roasting

When roasting at home, portable gas stoves are often used to prevent the fallen silver skin from causing cleanup difficulties. However, portable gas stove fuel canisters have limited capacity, and with longer roasting times, the gas may run out or cool down. Consequently, the flame might diminish partway through roasting, often leading to difficulties in maintaining consistent heat for the green beans. Therefore, careful observation of the flame condition is necessary, with adjustments made to flame size accordingly.

It's recommended to avoid using maximum flame whenever possible. While gas stoves using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG) typically don't have major issues, portable gas stoves may experience decreased internal pressure due to cooling canisters mid-process, causing maximum flame reduction. Therefore, consider dividing the flame into approximately four equal parts, setting three-quarters of maximum as your highest setting and one-quarter as your lowest. With this approach, even if gas pressure decreases slightly during the process, it won't significantly affect your established maximum heat setting. Use this method to determine flame size and adjust heat according to your personal style while roasting.

Hand Net Roasting Method Demonstration

Required Items:

Suitable amount of green beans, roasting hand net, portable gas stove, electric fan, digital scale, heat-resistant gloves

Preparation for Roasting

1. Preparation: Weigh an appropriate amount for your net size and place the beans in the hand net.

Equalization Phase

2. Equalization: Move the hand net at a high position above the heat source.

Heating Phase

3. Heating: Move the hand net closer to the flame while shaking.

First Crack

4. First Crack: Maintain the position from step 3 while shaking the hand net, or move slightly closer to the flame.

Rest Period

5. Rest Period: Shake the hand net at a position slightly further from the flame than in step 4.

Second Crack

6. Second Crack: Shake the hand net at a position further from the flame than in step 5.

Cooling Process

7. Cooling: Use an electric fan to cool the beans.

Text, images, and source materials from "The Ultimate Techniques Encyclopedia for Coffee Professionals"

Fresh Roasted Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

The single-origin fresh roasted coffee beans from FrontStreet Coffee—including Yirgacheffe Coffee, Kenya AA Coffee, and Panama Geisha Coffee—are fully guaranteed in terms of both brand and quality, suitable for brewing with various equipment. More importantly, they offer exceptional value: a half-pound (227g) package costs only around 80-90 RMB. Calculating at 15g per pour-over coffee, one package can make approximately 15 cups, with each single-origin coffee costing only about 6 RMB—offering tremendous value compared to cafés that often charge tens of RMB per cup.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small storefront but diverse bean varieties, offering both well-known and rare beans, as well as online shop services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473