Coffee Roaster Slapdown!

Okay, my first coffee batch was really good.  Wonderful flavors; better than I’ve ever tasted—but where was my sassafras?  I remember buying so-called “gourmet coffee beans”, that were really quite expensive and discovering that they were just stale old beans with sickly-sweet flavors sprayed onto their surface.  It tasted like Frankenberry coffee! 

Now what I had easily done with my high-tech popcorn popper and inexpensive green beans was a quantum leap beyond that nasty aforementioned Frankenstein coffee.  But I was still irritated…Maybe my problem was with not letting my beans degass within the proper parameters.  How, I ask you, can I become a successful roastmaster of the first water if I don’t degass my beans to the proper consistency?

It’s my understanding that the slowly seeping carbon dioxide gas within the roasted bean protects the newly formed favor oils from immediate oxygen damage.  So at what point is the peak of coffee favor attained (with the help of this gas) before degradation begins to kick-in?  How long should the beans be aged before grinding and immediate brewing?  Two days?  Five days?  Twenty four hours at room temperature and then drop them to a temperature of −35° for nine days; while squirting those frostbitten beans with a saturated calcium carbonite solution?  Should I purchase a carbon dioxide gas volume sensory chamber?  How about a remanufactured one from Nippon Denshoku Industries?  Naw, that might be a bit pricey for a tyro roastmaster!  I guess I would need to experiment a bit.    

Where was I—oh yeah, I was just about ready to fire-up my grinder/brewer coffee maker.  Now the reason I purchased this particular appliance was mainly because I had read somewhere that ground coffee goes completely stale after only thirty minutes of sitting around; while it takes a week or two before whole roasted beans start to go flat.  (I believe it has something to do with outgassing CO2—whatever that is?)  Pressed the grinder button and the Brazilian Yellow Bourbon Coffee beans were quickly ground; fanned into the brewing chamber.

Dog my cats, was I in for a surprise when I drank my first mug!  Where was that almond, anise and sassafras taste that my Northern California coffee distributer promised me?  Instead, the coffee tasted like nothing I had ever drunk (or as the caffeine aficionados say, “cupped”) before.  It tasted like the freshest, most clean tasting coffee I’ve ever encountered in my life.  Be still my heart!  I guess the word would be: “bright.”  Not bad for my first micro-roasted batch.  Ahem, Seattle Starbucks, eat your heart out!    Maybe during my next four minute roast, I’ll be able to bring out all of those subtle nuances…Especially that sassafras root.  Never had coffee with a root beer finish!      

It was time to put my first micro coffee roaster together and roast enough beans to pour into the twelve cup coffee grinder/brewer.  Firstly, I set the Fresh Roast Plus 8’s heavy base under my range’s blower hood and turned the base’s timer to the four minute mark.  Next, I filled the glass roasting chamber with two and a half scoops of green beans and then fit it onto the roaster’s base.  Lastly, I fit the two-piece flying saucer/chaff collector together and placed them upon the top of the tiny roasting chamber.  Turned the outlet blower on high—took a deep breath—and plugged the roaster in.

The FRP8 began to moan softly; then the beans became airborne—not unlike the m.o. of an air popcorn popper.  Wonder of wonders: The gray-green beans began turning a kaki-ish color right before my very eyes.  Then I heard the beginnings of the first crack (that’s when the internal sugars begin to caramelize and the coffee oils are starting to stur).

There’s an auditory lull as the beans continued to dance higher and higher.  Suddenly the flying saucer began to belch smoke as the second quieter crack was heard: somewhat analogous to distant popcorn.  “Captain, I don’t know what’s holding her together!”  By now the beans were very dark brown in color and some of the oils had made it to the surface.  I immediately turned the timer into its “cool” (down) sector and cooler air began blowing.

After a minute or so, my first roast was done.  I took the chaff collector apart, dumping the chaff into the garbage disposal.  Then I slipped the mothership into the dishwasher.  Next I dumped the beans into my coffeemaker’s grinding chamber; turning the roasting chamber upside-down and stuck it into the dishwasher.  Then I took the base and put it into the dishwasher.  Hell no!  I put it up into the cupboard…

Will our helpless coffee beans escape “The Devil’s Grinder?”  Stay-tuned for the next exciting episode!

Okay, let’s get away from my first micro-roasting device and I’ll contribute a few words re those refugees from a Brazilian coffee plantation, being called into ad hoc service as packing material.  I suppose one could say that they’re roughly equivalent to popcorn kernels vs. popped popcorn.  Everything is contained within their respective chrysalises (chrysalisi?); they just need that good ol’ heating catalyst to transform themselves into metaphorical butterflies.  

The greenies are half the size of the coffee beans we’re familiar with (and a little heavier due to their water weight).  Furthermore, they smell distinctly like a vegetable—180◦ away from that coffee smell we’re so familiar with.  (Now there’re coffee experts that claim freshly brewed coffee is made up of hundreds, perhaps thousands of distinct smells—and if you or your parents hail from the planet Solyaris or Altura IV you’ll be able to smell them all!)  The green beans keep their freshness for over a year, but when they’re roasted their flavor/aromatic quotient begins its long downhill assent after just a few days.  Gind it and you better brew it immediately!  And that’s why supermarket and most coffee house coffee containers are never roasting date stamped.  (Wouldn’t it be nice if your coffee retailer treated it like its other bakery products?  One can only dream…)

So when you brew your Maxell House it, of course, tastes nothing like craft roasted coffee.  You want that bright infused flavor of a Stella Artois, but you’re winding-up with that dingy/sour taste analogous to Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.  And I was getting tired of PBR coffee; ready to take the leap!