I roasted my own green coffee beans today using an old air popcorn popper. I have wanted to do this for years. After hearing a story from my sister last week about her roasting coffee beans in a frying pan on the beach in Hawaii with beans she picked right off the tree; I started to Google for info.

I bought a sampler pack from Sweet Maria’s (http://www.sweetmarias.com/). They are the best resource on the Internet for green coffee beans and have an extensive library of home roasting information. I got an old Westbend Air Popper from my parents’ basement and watched a bunch of YouTube videos of others using the exact same process.

They made it look very simple and as it turned out it pretty much was. The sample pack included 8 x .5 lbs of zip locked bags of coffee from all over the world. I arbitrarily picked 1 decaf from Costa Rica and 1 regular from Sumatra and started my roasting. I poured about 1/3 cup of beans into the popper and plugged it in. After a few minutes I heard the 1st crack and then the 2nd crack. From the YouTube videos, these are telltale signs of how cooked the beans were. Then the smoke started coming out of the popper, causing the smoke alarm to go off. I flung open the balcony door, grabbed a towel and started to fan the smoke alarm until it finally stopped. The beans where fine, I think this is just part of the process. After roasting for 7 -8 minutes, I pulled the plug, cooled the beans and let them sit overnight.

This morning I ground my freshly roasted beans and brewed my first cup. It was weak and I was disappointed!!! So, I watched a few more YouTube videos and fired up the Air Popper again. This time I left them in a little longer, had the towel in hand to fan the smoke and will grind and brew them tomorrow morning.

BTW, my condo smells like burned coffee.

I tried the ‘Thrasher Ride’ today.

It’s a 25’ish mile cycling ride which meets every week day and is only a few minutes from my house at the intersection of Bradley Blvd and Goldsboro Road in Bethesda, MD. I have never ridden with them, so it will be an experiment. Although I just read this...

“You want to know suffering? Come do the Thrasher Hill Ride tomorrow with us. If you don't have snot covering your top tube, your jersey, your shorts and you've not puked at least once, then you didn't ride hard enough.”

I changed out of work clothes in my car 1 block away from the ride start and hopped on my bike. I realized I forgot a water bottle and would have no fluids for the ride. O well, it is what it is!
One guy was already there and I went over to talk with him. His name was Randy and said he ‘owned’ the ride. He also said that Monday and Friday or pretty slow and T, W, and Th are fast. It was a Friday so I was looking forward to a slower ride since I have been abusing my body for the past few weeks with lots of running and fast group bike workouts.

A few more cyclists showed and we set off down Bradley toward Potomac. The route was north on Bradley, through Potomac, south on Clara Barton, back to start. Within the first mile our pack had grown to about 12. My new buddy Greg, an amazing cyclist, had also joined and we chatted it up. O’ the pace increased as well. Six miles in we were in a fast rotating pace line averaging 23-25 mph. This was NOT my kind of ‘slower’ ride, but I was having fun.

11.5 miles into the 25 mile ride I was holding on for dear life. Still in the rotating pace line, I knew I would not last much longer. Geez, if Fridays are slow, what is the pace on a T, W and Th??? Well, finally the freight train inched ahead of me. The gap grew to about 6 feet, I lost the advantage of the pace line draft and my quads where screaming at me. I could not hold on and it was all over. The train pulled away leaving me in its dust.

I knew the rest of the route and limped back to my car alone with tail between my legs. I drove directly to the closest McDonalds for a giant Iced Tea, to quench my thirst from not having a water bottle, and the day was done.

Tomorrow (Saturday), is another day with a 55 mile Potomac Peddler Group ride and a 7 mile run afterwards. One of these days I will take a day off.