Kate's in a pickle: June 2011

At around 10 yesterday morning, I was lazing around my apartment, sipping coffee on the back porch. I remember staring idly at the my strawberry plants, which have produced bouquets of flowers but no berries. The ceramic mug in my hand contained a strong, citrus-y brew with a splash of half & half.

Only one thought floated into my head during this 20-minute space-out:
"I need to roast more coffee."

I sure do. Now that I've successfully roasted one batch of beans without burning down the apartment, I'm ready for round two.

This foodie adventure started with a coupon for a roasting class at AJ Java in north Portland and a rumor that coffee can be roasted in a cast-iron skillet. I hope you know me well enough by now to guess if something can be cooked in cast iron, I'll give it a go.

AJ Java is a cheery, brightly colored and cafe in north Portland. When I arrived for class, the whole building (and the parking lot) smelled like toasted wheat berries. Owner Eleza Faison had just begun roasting a batch of beans in a giant Dietrich drum roaster. Within a few minutes, the aroma of freshly roasted coffee saturated the place. I felt coffee in my pores.

Eleza got our small class pumped about roasting beans at home; it's the freshest way to enjoy coffee, and to discover the infinite number of flavors you can coax from different varieties of beans, roasted in slightly different ways.

This is an excellent time to mention that I'm not a roasting expert. I have no credentials, but I took one class and watched a few cupping demonstrations at the Stumptown Annex. I've learned enough to know that home roasting is fun...and also a fire hazard if you're not careful. So, have fun and be careful.

All of the photos I took in Eleza's class were terrible. Every last one. Let's pretend I was too mesmerized by Eleza's philosophy on farm-direct coffee purchasing** to fully document the experience. So, I'm sharing photos from the roasting party Raymond and I had two Saturdays ago in our kitchen. Armed with an instructional pamphlet from Eleza, a skillet, and a great oven vent, we were ready to duplicate The Spice Merchant's Columbia Supremo roast on the first try!

The raw materials from which we created greatness

Turns out, we are not roasting savants. For our first batch, Raymond and I brought a skillet up to "high" heat, using a candy thermometer to measure up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Leaving the end of a regular candy thermometer directly on a 450-degree heated surface is a great way to break a candy thermometer.

After saying adieu to the thermometer and lowering the burner heat to "medium-high," Raymond and I carefully poured a half-cup of green beans in the skillet. We lowered the heat further when over a dozen beans singed almost immediately. Raymond stirred constantly while I kept the kitchen ventilated and took pictures with my arthritic, first-generation Canon CoolPix.

One bad, charred bean can ruin a whole batch.

I picked out the burned beans while Raymond stirred, stirred, stirred. Eleza told our class to stir at least once every 30 seconds, but said the more often you stir, the more evenly the beans roast. By this point, Raymond and I had dismantled the smoke detector and turned the oven fan on high.

Foodie field note: roasting coffee is done by ear, by eye, by smell, and by timer. Prepare to examine the coffee closely, to watch the beans burst into a larger shape, and to write many, many notes.

Our very uneven, under-roasted first batch

You'll notice that the beans in this batch are either an under-roasted gold or a charred brown-black. The gold beans never reached a hot enough temperature to reach a "first pop," the temp (around 420 degrees Fahrenheit) at which the internal cell walls of the coffee bean are cracked by its oils and applied heat.

Raymond and I didn't want to waste those precious beans. We tried to sort out the golden beans and give them another quick roast. Starting and stopping the process was a mistake; half of the beans ended up roasting too much, while others never heated back up to the correct temperature.

Foodie field note: roast a batch all in one go, without stopping. This could take as little as 5 minutes for a light roast and as long as 12 or 13 minutes for a dark or "French" roast.

Winner of the 2011 Husband-of-the-Year Award

We knew we were on a mission for failure when we poured the beans into my old hand-mill. I've ground at least a dozen pounds of beans in that grinder, using only its iron crank and elbow grease to crush the beans into ground coffee. Usually, I can feel the beans being pulverized with minimal elbow grease on my part.

Properly roasted beans crush in the grinder with the same sound and feeling that crushing walnut halves in your hand would create. With our over/under cooked first and second batches of beans, it sounded grinding seashells or gravel. I summoned Herculean strength to grind what felt like sun-roasted cherry pits into coffee.

R-L: Two samples each of batches one and two

We pressed on and set up glasses for a cupping. (Here's a nice summary from Coffee Geek on why roasters do formal tastings, or cuppings, of each batch and how to set up your own.)

I prepped two samples from each batch, using 12 grams (about 2 heaping spoonfuls) of ground coffee per 6 oz water. While I heated a tea kettle-full of water to boiling, Raymond and I sniffed the fresh coffee and noted the scents and aromas.

After we did our preliminary sniff, I took the water off a boil for just a second, then stirred 3/4 cup water into each glass. What usually happens at this point --and what happens every time I see a cupping at Stumptown -- is the coffee grounds rise to the top of each glass in a heat-sealing cap. The coffee should brew for four minutes under this cap before you crack the crust of grounds, take another sniff, and write more notes about the aroma.

Here are some of our notes from this cupping:

Chez Clause Light

1. Sniff: light, woody, earthy
2. Sniff after brew: "Same as before, only stronger." (Raymond's notes are in quotation marks.)
3. Sniff after breaking crust: citrusy, light.
4. Taste: "like poo."

As coffee roasts, it loses up to 20 percent of its weight in moisture. When the grounds from this cupping sank like stones in the bottom of the glasses, I knew we'd just browned the outside of some raw coffee beans instead of cooking them from the inside-out.

We were ready to roast again, slowly and evenly this time.

Keep stirring! Keep stirring!

With batches three and four, we tweaked the heat to a strong "medium" on our Hotpoint burner. At this temperature, the coffee beans started to turn yellow and smell grassy after 3 minutes. Perfect!

In 5 - 7 minutes, the beans swell and reach the first pop. They literally jump in the pan! You can watch them expand in size. This stage sounds like a crackling campfire. Keep stirring!

From this point, the roast and flavor of the coffee will change rapidly, every minute. You could stop after the first pop and enjoy a light roast. You could roast (and stir) for a few minutes more to achieve a darker roast. In fact, the way the cast iron pan keeps the smokiness of roasting near the beans complements a darker roast. A French or dark roast takes 12 to 15 minutes.

When your coffee has reached roasted perfection, remove it from heat and transfer it to a metal bowl or colander. Stir, stir, stir to stop the cooking process as quickly as possible. You may even use a tabletop fan to cool the beans as you stir.

That's much more even!

Foodie field note: Coffee Geek recommends letting the beans rest for two days before using them. Once they've properly degassed, you can store them in an air-tight glass container (like a cleaned pickle jar!) in a cool, dark place.

Raymond and I couldn't wait to get the taste of mud-flavored coffee out of our mouths, so we jumped the gun and did another cupping.

Layers are good

See the grounds floating at the top of the glasses, as God intended?

After four minutes of brewing, Raymond and I gently pushed the top layer of grounds down with the back of a spoon, like we were cracking the shell of crème brûlée. When you try this, smell the steam that escapes from the coffee as you push the grinds down. You'll smell a burst of complex aromas as the steam rises from the glass. Write your impressions of these aromas down.

So delicious! I could just drink it with a spoon.

Oil- and flavor-rich crema rose to the top after we pushed the grounds down. This is the same crema that tops a perfectly pulled shot of espresso, the stuff that gives espresso its rich flavor.

Now, it's time to slurp a spoonful of coffee. This is how professional roasters do it, I swear. The louder, the better. (Slurping allows the coffee to coat your entire tongue, giving you a real taste of the brew.) Again, write down what you taste.

Here are our notes from this cupping:

Chez Clause Dark

1. Sniff: woody, sharp, moist
2. Sniff after brew: woody, earthy, citrusy
3. Sniff after breaking crust: citrusy, light.
4. Taste: light-bodied, with wood and oranges

The real stuff: ground and brewed just minutes later

Foodie field note: taking notes not only allows you to notice the flavors in each type of coffee and each roasted batch, but it allows you to duplicate the results you enjoy later. Whether you're Starbucks, using a complicated "flavor profile" to create the same House Blend batch after batch, or a home roaster trying to remember how to bring out the lemony flavors Tanzanian Peaberry beans, notes are your friend. They're your operating manual.

Whew! I burned through so many cups of coffee while writing this foodie adventure that it's time to roast more coffee. If you're curious about home roasting--whether you use a skillet like me or even a popcorn popper--please look at some of the resourced I've compiled below. Most of the Portland businesses I found who sell green beans also offer online ordering for people who don't live in town. Happy roasting!

Green Beans and Roasting Classes Portland

AJ Java Roasting - roasting classes, plus a great rotating cast of green beans online. ***Eleza specializes in buying beans directly from growers; she doesn't trust third-party "fair trade" groups to pay fair prices, so she gets to know the farmers directly.
Sweet Maria's - offers beans and home roasting supplies online, plus fantastic home roasting reading material
Lovejoy Coffee Co. - offers online ordering, plus you can set up an appointment to learn home roasting in their store.
Mr. Green Beans - sells beans and supplies in Portland and online, plus DIY home craft (canning, roasting, soap- and cheese-making) classes at their Mississippi District storefront.
Barbur World Foods - in SW Portland, offers several varieties of green beans in bulk. When I stopped by on Sunday evening, they were carrying beans from Africa and Columbia.