Home Roasting

So I'm gonna write this because I stumbled over another person who tried home roasting recently and this is they way I learned to roast coffee. 

I started with a couple 1 pound bags of green coffee beans, a field notes booklet, a cast iron skillet, an oven mite and a wire whisk. 

It was very time consuming and a lot of stirring. It was also really rewarding once you finished enough coffee to last a couple weeks too! I recorded every roast in that red field notes booklet and I still record each roast to make sure I stay consistent. I write down the starting weight of the green coffee beans. (When I first started it was 60 grams and now its 1 pound of green coffee beans) 

With my first roast batches I even wrote down the taste, time, heat, and grind that I used with the coffee. 

Practice, recording what you do each roast, take pictures of each roast, what does it taste like, how does it taste, what grind did you use. These would be the top things to keep track of. Document, everything you do when roasting coffee it will help teach you what to do and what not to do in the future. 

When you roast in a cast iron skillet you get a really good look at what happens to the beans as you roast. They change color slow, the heat builds up slowly, but once the beans get really hot they start to change quickly so you have to be aware of whats going on and not day dream. Once you've roasted to your desired roast, cool the beans by constantly moving them in front of or over top of moving air. Once done cooling the beans weigh them and record it! 

All of this has been great help to me over the past year!

I will have a part two to this tomorrow morning.