I’m now 2 weeks into my home roasting adventure, and I’m never buying pre-roasted beans again.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s small batch roasters out there that are insanely good.  But, for less than 1/2 the price, and still making mistakes, I’m producing product that I would happily stand up against some of the best cafes in town.  The crema is thick and colorful.  And, possibly most important, the shots taste almost exactly as they smell.  The blend I’m working with is producing balanced caramel sweetness with bakers chocolate flavors, and it’s thick and luxurious.

The aroma of fresh roasted coffee is through the roof, the taste completely ridonculous (sic) – a religious experience.  Home roasting coffee guarantees all this never is out of reach.  Did I mention the cost savings?  It costs me roughly 1/2 as much to be home roasting my own coffee.  If you are a serious coffee drinker, you could probably pay for a vacation every year with the money you save.

If you saw the precious post, you saw that I’m using a FreshRoast SR700.  The one consistent knock on the FreshRoast machines in reviews around the internet is batch size – too small.  Yes, you can only roast 4oz at a time (final yield about 3.2oz per batch).  But, the flip side is that each roast is about 10-14 minutes.  So, you have almost a pound with an hour of home roasting.  Let’s be honest here…is it really such a terrible thing to spend an hour home roasting coffee?  You can geek out as much as you want on the science of it.  Analyze each roast.  Tweak recipes.  Oh, and did I mention the cost savings (again)?  Buy some exotic beans.  Try some new coffees!