22 July 2009

Organic Coffee Roasters

By PJ Easton

You might be wondering why coffee beans need to be roasted and what the advantages of buying them green and roasting them at home are. Unroasted beans contain the same protein, caffeine, and acids that roasted coffee has, but far less flavor. Roasting the beans in an organic coffee roaster is what gives you the flavor and smell that makes coffee the most popular beverage in the world.

The reason for buying them green and roasting them at home is simple. The green beans are more stable, which gives them a much longer shelf life. By roasting them yourself, at home, you are assured of always having the freshest tasting coffee, roasted to your particular tastes.

There are many different ways that coffee can be roasted. If you have a hot air popcorn popper, you can use it to "air roast" your coffee. Air roasting is a fairly quick process that will evenly roast your beans in ten minutes or less, without scorching them. This is done by cooking them in the hot air stream, the same way it would pop the corn. You can also buy organic coffee roasters, which are called fluid bed roasters, that will air roast your beans.

But that is only one of the various ways of roasting a coffee bean. You can try roasting it simply in a pan. This is done much the same way popcorn was made before the automatic popcorn poppers came into being. This method would be called "conduction roasting," because the burner heats the pan and conducts that heat to the coffee beans.

It requires a lot of attention, and you have to keep shaking the pan, or you will be scorching your beans. It isn't easy at first, but with practice you should soon be able to roast the coffee evenly, which will keep you from having that burnt taste when you grind and brew your coffee. It will make an acceptable cup, but you may choose to bite the bullet and purchase an organic coffee roaster.

"Radiant drum roasting" is yet another way to roast your organic coffee beans. You can roast more coffee beans at a time, but here is a disadvantage to a drum roaster. You are not able to observe the beans while they are heating and tumbling in the drum, so you have to depend on the smell to know when they have been roasted to your desired tastes. They also smoke a bit more, so you make want to do the roasting in this organic coffee roaster outside or in the garage.

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