A good cup of coffee starts with a batch of freshly roasted beans. Freshly roasted beans result from the careful combination of green coffee beans, heat, and a little bit of time. For most coffee drinkers, the freshest coffee comes from the grocery store. Unfortunately, grocery store coffee isn’t actually all that fresh. Many coffees are roasted more than 6 months prior to your purchase.
What’s the alternative? Roast your coffee at home!
Home coffee roasting can seem intimidating at first. Terms like first crack, second crack, and chaff make the process seem like more of an art than a science. But we’re certain that you will not be disappointed by the coffee you roast. Often, you’ll find that the freshness makes it taste way better than anything you buy off the shelf at the grocery.
We outlined the top 5 reasons you should be roasting your own green coffee at home.
Reasons You Should Roast at Home
- It’s a blast—Home roasting is an exceptionally fun and exhilarating hobby. If you are a coffee lover, it provides you with a way to get even more of what you love. Warning: If you roast at home, you will end up drinking more coffee.
- Reduces your coffee cost—Coffee can be expensive, and good coffee even more so. Green coffee, however, is rather cheap. It’s a commodity and the roasting process has historically been what gives coffee its high price. A decent green coffee can be as low as $5-$6/lb, as compared with $20/lb for some high-end roasts. You can definitely save money by roasting at home, but you will probably end up drinking more coffee.
- Control your cup—You can control the vast majority of your brewing experience. By roasting your own beans, you enter the driver’s seat. After a few roasts, you’ll start to discover what you like and what you don’t, then iterate until you’ve perfected your roast profile.
- It’s fun to talk about—While coffee roasting is a well-known procedure, it’s not a very common hobby. When most people think of coffee roasting, they think of the jumbo Probat machines seen at the commercial-scale. It’s a great conversation piece to tell people you roast your own coffee.
- Improve the way you serve coffee—Everyone loves a home-cooked meal. But hey, that’s pretty common. At your next dinner party, you can boldly declare that the delicious coffee everyone is enjoying after dinner was roasted under your own roof. Who else can say that? I still have yet to share my freshly roasted coffee with someone and not be met with disbelief.
- A fresher cup—Roasting coffee at home enables you to be incredibly discerning about the freshness of your coffee. When you buy coffee at the grocery store from a big-name coffee company, you likely are purchasing coffee that was roasted more than 6 months ago. When you buy coffee from a small coffee roaster in the same grocery story, you’re probably getting some beans that were roasted within the last two months. When you buy coffee from a local coffee roaster, you likely are getting coffee that was roasted within the last two weeks. Coffee, however, is at its best when it’s consumed between 2 to 14 days from roasting. Roasting at home yields the freshest beans.