Recently, we decided to try roasting our coffee. We purchased Sumatran green coffee beans from Just Us! with the intent to try roasting our own. Others in our family have been roasting coffee in a popcorn maker and haven't looked back. It is cheaper and the coffee tastes better. We thought we would give it a try. I awoke on Saturday morning and realized that today was the day as I looked in the coffee grinder and saw that our pre roasted beans had run out.
One piece of familial advice was to roast outside as the smell can hang in the air for quite some time. I did it in our back porch with the fresh winter morning air blowing in the open door. I felt like I was camping.
I did the first batch with the plastic popcorn maker lid on it and found it took a long time. The cold air was making it difficult for the beans to heat to the desired temperature to make things happen. For the second batch, I got rid of the plastic lid and fashioned a foil plate on top of the maker leaving a space for heat to escape. This sped things up immensely. You know things are working as the chaff from the beans start to blow off and they begin to turn a golden yellow colour. Stirring the beans occasionally with a chopstick helps to release the chaff. Soon they start to crack and not too long after that they crack again and little dark coloured specs pop out of the hopper. After doing some reading on coffeeresearch.org, I found out that the roasting limit is halfway into the second crack. I haven't tried roasting past the second crack so I am not sure of the halfway mark. Perhaps some more familial advice is in order. I decided that once beans were glistening with oil it was a good time to stop. The next experiment will be to roast and mix beans from other countries.
I spent this past weekend with creative youth from Huron County at the Epic Shift Youth Festival in Blyth. My role in the event was as Visual Artist Mentor. I had the pleasure of travelling to the high schools in Huron County gathering the current art work of students via their supportive art teachers. The result of our collective efforts made for a very vibrant and highly skilled collection of work. The viewers were impressed with the visual expression of these young people who ranged in age from about 14-24.
