Roasting Coffee (D.I.M. style)

D.I.M. stands for Doing It Myself and that's what I did recently with roasting my own coffee.  Quite easy, less cost and better beans.

I ordered my green beans through Sweet Maria's website.  I picked up their 4 lbs. sample set which came with four separate pounds from four separate coffee regions of the world.  Kinda cool.  There also is Coffee Bean Corral which has great prices and a large variety of coffee.

Anyway, I had thought for awhile now that surely it was possible to roast beans in a Whirly Pop popcorn popper, and I found that many folks roast their beans that way.  I've used a Whirly Pop for years to pop popcorn, thanks to my mother giving me one many moons ago (Here's a link in case you don't know what a Whirly Pop is.)  You'll want to have one Whirly Pop solely dedicated to coffee roasting because the smell never leaves.  Check out your local thrift store.  I see them all the time, and found one for $2.

You'll need to roast the beans outside on a gas BBQ side burner or a camp stove because the smell and smoke is strong and voluminous.

I roast 1/2 pound at a time with the heat on medium-high the whole time.  It takes around seven minutes to finish roasting and you need to be turning the Whirly Pop consistently throughout the roast.  I turn the handle a few rotations every 3-5 seconds and that seems to work fine.

At about three minutes you'll hear the first popping of the beans as they crack and release moisture, and then about three minutes later you'll begin to hear a second, lighter popping (kinda like Rice Crispy cereal in milk) as the sugars and oils are releasing and caramelizing the beans.  At that point you can stop and have a fine light roast or go for a minute or so more for a darker roast.

I then pour them out onto a baking sheet (again, one solely dedicated to coffee) and let them cool for several hours.  Then after that put them in an air tight container of some sort, and they're fine for several weeks (the sooner the better though.)  Enjoy.