Coffee from a Popcorn Popper?

As most of you may not know, I have been experimenting with roasting my own coffee beans. Why, you ask? Uh... er....

Lets ignore the why and instead start with the how:

The how all began with a few hours of misspent time on the internet. I found out that it was possible to roast coffee via a standard hot air pop corn popper. Since I'm neither good with my hands, nor an electrical engineer, I thought that this would be a great way to spend some time...

So far, it's been an adventure:

Oct 31, 2007 marked the first night of this ill-conceived hobby. I arranged the tools of my newly chosen trade: Oil Popcorn Popper (I hadn't gotten an airpopper yet), green coffee beans (ordered via the internet from Toronto), metal mesh collander, wooden spoon, candy, chair, extension cord. Candy?! Well yes, I chose Halloween as the first night for this endeavour for two reasons: 1) There would be a lot of people around to help extinguish fires, 2) I would have a good reason for the strange noises coming from the open garage (screams, cracks, metal on metal grinding, etc). I turned the popper on and waited and waited and waited. I'll post photos later. 1/2 hour later, the coffee was brownish....so I assumed that it was done.

2 days later, Andria and I tasted my creation. We both agreed that it was bitter and generally gross. I gather this to mean that it was under-roasted and over-cooked. Ouch, was this the end of my new hobby? No, I hadn't lit anything on fire yet.

Late November/Early December, I thought that it was time for Round 2. By this time I had purchased a hot air popcorn popper (a Toastess Model, $18). I had read that there was a chance that this popper wouldn't get hot enough, so I took the machine apart (pictures soon).
I think that I fixed the safety shutoff to no longer shutoff safely, but there's a chance that I didn't do anything. I enlarged the holes in the machine to emit more hot air, which I assumed would allow for a more balanced heating surface for the beans.

Now, December is pretty cold here in Kingston, so I needed to make sure that the machine would get hot enough. I figured that if I placed the machine in a cardboard box and lowered a tab or two it would make sure that the air recirculated, thus keeping the machine warm.

With my idea and my materials at hand, I headed out into the garage. I had asked Andria to give me a hand this time, I thought that we would both enjoy this. She decided that folding clothes was a more enjoyable option.

I set the modified popper into the cardboard box, placed the collander into the box to catch the chaff from the beans and prepared to get started.

This time I had a journal to keep notes in, a stopwatch to time the roast, my camera, and a step-stool for a chair.

I fired up (fire being the key) the popper and let it run for about 15 seconds to warm up. I gently dropped in the beans and lowered the box flap to keep the heat in.

I timed it, taking a picture every minute and taking notes fast and furiously. 2 minutes in it was getting pretty hot, their was smoke billowing out of the box. This is what is supposed to happen, at least that's what the internet says. About 4 1/2 minutes in, I can't take the smoke any more, I need to open the garage. About this time, Andria decides to peek in -- this decision would result in a stale, burnt coffee smell lingering in our house for weeks.

Needless to say, this coffee was burnt. Now, being an optimist, I assumed that maybe I had just roasted a "city roast" or ultra dark-roast. So I bagged it for later.

The next day I brewed the coffee in a french press and then managed to convince Andria to try some with me. It was pretty much like drinking ash mixed with the taste of hate.

I haven't roasted any coffee since then, but I feel like tonight might be the night... I'm going to try for something between the first and second experiences -- nice, roasted coffee.

I'll let you know how it goes.

-Colin

First Post

Hey everybody,

So it occurred to me that I rarely speak to some folks, namely, my family and friends. So I was hoping that this would offer a solution for me to keep some semblance of "in touch".

I figure that I'll throw something into this every day or so. Pretty much just a summary of how I'm doing, what's up, etc.

-Colin

EDIT: Turns out that I wrote one then none for about a year. In other words, I rock!
EDIT 2: Then I wrote a couple more, and none for about another year...geez.