Coffee Appreciation

i'm happy to send the rest of the packet on if you want them, i've poured about 50g into the grinder - call it a beans for karma swap!

Am going on holiday tomorrow. Very unorganised. Normally I buy Yellow Bourbon espresso blend, ground for Aeropress. What can I get from a supermarket that might be good enough?

Union is about the best I've found that's usually in stock in supermarkets (ok, usually in stock in Waitrose).

In terms of similar flavour profile, IMO closest is probably Whittard Ethiopian if you have one near you, followed by M&S Kenyan, then Lavazza gold.

Is that the Ikawa home roaster? You've peaked my interest - how much of a learning curve / faff have you found it? Don't need another rabbit hole but wonder if it's worth it for the long term.

Another home roaster here (Gene Cafe).

Where do get your greens from? Running v low!

One of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/355771160267

The Ikawa looks to be strictly a sample roaster with a 50g or 100g capacity (which will yield less than 45/90g).

The one I have is very basic in terms of temperature monitoring, just a single basic thermometer which isn't always fully surrounded by the beans. So you're always going to suffer with precision in recreating roast profiles.

In hindsight, I probably should've got the 500g model. With the 250g one, I've found that anything much over 200g, you start to get inconsistency across the beans. But it's a decent enough little thing. I've had it just under 4 years now, probably got through around 80-100 kilos of coffee in that time. Normally works out around £12-14 per kilo, so probably saving around £30 per kilo (each 200g roast probably costs around 2-3p in electricity so I guess that should be added), so probably broke even after 6-7 months or so?

There's also the various Kaldi roasters which look like a decent offering for small scale roasting, but they require a standalone burner and I couldn't be bothered with the faff of that. But they do look like the better option in terms of precision & monitoring capabilities.

In terms of learning curve, it was pretty basic. Largely due to the lack of monitoring capability. There's a load of info out there in terms of roast profiles, but with a basic thermometer I'm pretty limited in what I can do, which I'm honestly not unhappy about. I heat the thing up, keep it at around 75% heat until the turning point, up to 100%, gradually rolling off a bit until first crack, then drop it and wait for it to look like it's done (pretty much done by eye on my part).

Professional roasters are probably frothing at the mouth reading that basic description, but it provides decent and consistent enough roasts for me. It's not on par with a great coffee from a great roaster, but it's worth it for me.

But yeah, feel free to fire over any questions you might have, obviously we have at least one professional roaster in the thread so I might pass over the more detailed questions to them. But for the hobbyist stuff I'm happy to oblige!

I've always used these guys: https://www.redber.co.uk/

Never had any issues with them, but I don't really have anyone else to compare them to!

Cheers, coffeelink also sell greens and there's a buying collective on a FB group too.

I’ve always fancied roasting my own coffee.

I wonder how many kg I’d ruin before I got it right

And Sainsbury. At least they print the roast date on the bags, it’s worth digging through for freshest ones - I doubt the supermarkets rotate stock but I don’t think they necessarily recieve stock in age order either.

Honestly it's not too tricky. My first few attempts were using one of these https://www.triplebarcoffee.com/equipment/roasting/nuvo-eco-coffee-roaster-review/

and a camping stove.

Definitely under-roasted a few times before I got a decent enough idea of what they should look like (a few very weak, and very grassy tasting coffees were had in the first attempts)

If you listen for when they start cracking, and keep a close eye on them afterwards so they don't full on burn up, you can't go too far wrong.

Of course, that's just for roasting things to a level where they are drinkable. After that, it's a bit more practice to get more consistent roasts, then tweaking things to taste.

Sounds fun.

I got one of those roasting pans you see about the place, I wanted to try getting my decaf beans to a light/medium. Failed miserably, couldn't get it to anything resembling coffee, it was weird.

I've heard some people have had success with a hot air popcorn machine, what do you reckon? I've got one, been thinking about giving it a go.

Couldn’t hurt to try.

I really don’t need another hobby. I should focusing on oil painting and my allotment.

I made a video in lockdown about roasting with a heat gun. Best method I’ve found for home roasting.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B-Uo10opBxe/?igsh=c21pczBjeTRndWV1

Link not working : (

If you've already got one, there's no harm in giving it a go! Think Redber sell green beans in as little as 250g bags.

Link not working here either unfortunately. Though I think I remember that one, mainly for the zooming in on the kid peeking through the gap in the door halfway through!

Linky no worky here

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Cool! I wondered if a heat gun would work, because my one has temperature control which would seem ideal? Looking forward to the fixed link!

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B-Uo10opBxe/?igsh=c21pczBjeTRndWV1

Ah ffs that doesn’t work either. I dunno. Go on the insta, scroll down a few years, it’s this one.

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There's a coffee brew up meet ahead of Bespoked in Manchester this coming Friday.

The park is next to Picadilly rail station.

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I can get small batches of green decaf beans at my local roastery, I'll give it a go and report back.

Tho' I've just received a variety pack of decafs from a new roaster, started with the medium/dark today and it's pretty good. It'll take me a while to get through that lot.

Rep! Appreciate the input, not sure why I've never explored this.