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.