Monday, March 19, 2012
Roasting Coffee Beans in a Frying Pan: A Simple How-To
This weekend I did something I hadn't done before, which was roasting green coffee beans in a frying pan! I've done it in a big roaster and in a small home roaster, but never in a frying pan. Did you know that buying green coffee beans costs about half the price of roasted coffee beans? Did you know roasting coffee only takes about ten minutes? It's super easy! And, of course, you can always get your green beans from Mr. Green Beans! ;o)
I got some Guatemala Huehuetenango coffee beans from work. Huehue is one of my favorite coffees, so I was excited to try roasting it on my own.
I preheated my iron skillet to the medium setting on my stove and poured in 4oz of green beans.
Then I just started stirring!
The beans started to change color and I kept them moving. They go through two stages of cracks. I like my coffees a little past the first crack, producing a nice medium roast. I stopped the coffee a little lighter than I wanted my end result to be, because the beans will get a little darker after you take them off the stove.
I then put them in my metal colander and shook them around until they were cool! The beans will produce a chaff when they are in skillet, which made it a little smoky in my kitchen, but nothing too bad. More of the chaff came off when I shook the beans around.
Ta do! Fresh roasted coffee beans! I put them in a Mason jar and didn't quite seal the jar, but turned the ring back around about halfway. The coffee will off-gas for a few hours after being roasted and is drinkable after that. Drinking coffee the next morning that I roasted myself was a good feeling!
Hot, fresh coffee was very enjoyable to have while I worked at the Saturday Market this weekend!
Have you ever thought about roasting your own beans?
I am linking this post to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.
I am linking this post to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.
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Brittany, thanks for this post! Your timing was perfect. We are in Mexico and having a hard time finding roasted coffee that we like (all too light). We have been talking to another cruiser who is roasting his own and thinking more and more that that would be the way for us to go, as green beans are easily available here. Your post may just be what tips the scales for us. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNicki (Renai's Mom)
Hi!!! Talk about perfect timing. Renai posted this page to you literally minutes after I had published it. She is GOOD! ;o)
ReplyDeleteOh, that is so awesome that you have such good access to green beans! Yes, this was really easy to do. I would say the "worst" part would be the smokiness. We don't have a hood over our stove, so we ended up opening a window and putting a box fan in the room, which helped. I'm not sure what you have on the boat, but just be aware of the smoke!
Ooh! I'm definitely going to try this.
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