Home Roasted Coffee Beans | Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans

Professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

Why Home Coffee Roasting is Worthwhile

To enjoy the wonderful experience of freshly roasted coffee beans and their aromatic richness, nothing beats roasting your own coffee beans!

Furthermore, you'll discover many other flavors within the coffee.

You'll also identify the differences in origin, altitude, variety, processing method, and roasting techniques.

This will help you understand coffee better.

Therefore, before starting home roasting, the author shares the essential items you must prepare.

But remember, there might be items not listed here, and some things you might not be able to purchase.

This is why you need all five senses to assist in your roasting technique.

Everything else can be purchased online. Let's get started!

Essential Items for Beginner Coffee Roasters

1. Simple Roasting Machine

There are several options depending on your budget and desired machine features. Some people choose popcorn poppers or even frying pans—these are more economical choices, but they don't allow you to control roasting variables or observe how the beans react to heat during roasting. When you decide to get serious about roasting, you can upgrade your equipment.

If you're looking for a more practical machine, you'll need a home roaster that allows you to control temperature, time, and other additional features during roasting.

Take the Behmor 1600Plus as an example—it's affordable for most people and can roast one pound at a time. You can set parameters for specific beans or override factory settings, and it also has ventilation functionality. Since this machine is designed for coffee rather than popcorn, it features a built-in automatic cooling system and a drum to ensure even roasting.

Home roasting? A new hobby you can cultivate!

2. Green Coffee Beans

What roasting needs is green beans, but you should know that green beans have differences. When you start roasting at home, you'll notice different regions, varieties, production histories, processing methods, and even flavor descriptions—all of which will affect the roasting.

For example, coffee bean density is influenced by many factors, with growing altitude being the easiest to measure. Denser beans have better flavors, and because their high density affects how they absorb heat, using too low a temperature during roasting will result in baked flavors. However, if you use too high a temperature for soft beans (low density), they will burn.

The good news is you can identify density by looking at the center line of green beans—the wider the gap, the softer the bean. To compare different beans, you can try the DIY methods taught below.

Some books and websites explore this topic, and some home roasters also write tutorials for different settings, so you can easily find roasting tutorials and start practicing.

Understand green beans before roasting

3. Scale

A scale is indispensable for brewing, so if you don't have one, get one quickly. It can be used to measure the weight of green beans and roasted beans, letting you know how much coffee you've roasted and how much moisture weight the coffee beans lost during roasting.

Scales aren't just for helping with coffee brewing!

4. Cooling Tray or Colander

If your roaster doesn't have a cooling tray, you'll need one. When the beans have finished roasting, their core temperature remains extremely high, so reducing the internal temperature is crucial—and the faster, the better.

Some home roasters have cooling trays for the cooling process, but if you don't have these items, buy a tray or colander. While not the optimal tool, it's still acceptable and is one of the steps toward creating perfect coffee beans.

Cool the roasted coffee beans to prevent residual heat from affecting bean quality.

5. Coffee Bean Bags/Opaque Airtight Containers

After completing the cooling process, you must allow the gases released by the beans to escape. There are different opinions on this: author Sweet Maria suggests 8-12 hours, while others say 24 hours or even longer.

How you store your coffee beans also affects their shelf life. Store your coffee beans properly—it's recommended to use bags with one-way valves to block light, moisture, heat, and air. Another good option is airtight containers that can be reused. Ensure the container is in good condition and can block light exposure, or your coffee beans will quickly deteriorate.

Proper storage can extend bean freshness,

6. Roasting Records/Notes

Want consistent flavor from every batch you roast? Or want to understand why you roasted undesirable flavors or defects and how to change that? You must keep roasting records. You can use the same beans, same machine, same roasting parameters each time, but only by recording parameters can you control and replicate them.

Record every step to reproduce roasting results.

Home roasting is an enjoyable experience that can transform your relationship with coffee and even become your new business! So if you're interested in roasting, gather all the items listed here, find reference materials or procedures that friends have done before for your first attempt, and experience the joy of roasting!

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online store 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