Maybe you are curious as to how I roast these single-origin coffee beans.
Gene Cafe Roaster
I have a table-top Gene Cafe roaster. It roasts 1/2 pound of green coffee beans at a time. The beauty of this cadillac of roasters is that it rotates the beans as it blows hot air over them. So there are few hot spots. It roasts very evenly, which is ideal. It also lets me set the time and the temperature of each batch.
I roast until I get the color that I know I like. The roaster makes noise, so I don’t rely on trying to hear the first crack. I definitely don’t let it get to second crack. It depends on the bean, but that light-brown color tells me what I need to know. I aim for a cinnamon roast which is somewhere between light and medium. In the photo below, green un-roasted beans are on the left, a light or cinnamon roast is in the middle, and a medium roast is on the right.
The smell of the beans roasting also give me clues as to how long to let it go. The roaster uses hot air and I set it to 446 degrees, which is about as low as it gets. Even when the roaster switches to cool air, the beans will continue cooking for a little bit. So I have to know when it’s almost done and stop it there.
The weather affects how cold the beans are in my kitchen, so that affects the roasting time as well. It’s not rocket science, but it is cooking, essentially. And I’m a good cook who doesn’t like to burn things.