Home Coffee Roasting?

I roast my own coffee. I have an i-roast 2 that I bought from Sweet Marias.

Roasting is fairly easy but here are somethings you should know.

It's pretty noisy, similar to an air popcorn popper but you're running it for about 1/2 an hour.

Depending on how dark you like your roast, you generate a decent amount of smoke. I run mine on top of my stove with the overhead vent on full blast. It still creates strong smelling smoke in the house.

Un-roasted beans cost less per pound than roasted beans but realize that most of that weight is roasted out of the bean. The cost per lb. at the end is about the same.

Un-roasted beans basically last forever. Roasted beans lose their flavor in about a week. Nothing tastes better than fresh roasted beans.

You have to wait about 24hrs after roasting before you should use the beans. The beans need time to expel CO2, so you shouldn't take the coffee out of the roaster and grind them.

Shipping on the green beans adds up so you should buy a lot. I usually order 15-30lbs at a time.

If you love coffee it's definitely worth it. Realize with a small roaster like the iRoast2 the yield isn't that much coffee, furthermore the manual says the unit is designed for about 2 roasts per week. So if you drink a lot of coffee in your house you may need a bigger roaster.

-Michael.