Post edited 10:14 pm – August 22, 2010 by Jason Coffee
I just started roasting yesterday and I decided tonight to start this wall to catalog my progress. I will leave the posting of well written articles to the more tenured roasters for now. (aka Neil, Jamie and possibly Matt C? 
) Feel free to leave a comment or question.
What I did:
Tonight was my second roast of Kona. I went to Walgreens and picked up a side vented popcorn popper for $10 (I called 10 stores, I think this was the last one in Kansas City). I did notice that the beans moved around a lot more with this type of popper in comparison to the one with the screen on the bottom. I decided not to use a spoon to stir because of this and to see how it compared in flavor and color. I also decide to start with the beans in the chamber as apposed to a pre heated chamber.
(Transparency:
My first batch tonight I ruined because I tried to use the same volume of beans I used in the first roasting video. I used 4 oz (in volume) and I thought I was going to start a fire. The beans didn't move much and the chaff seems to get trapped under the beans. I frantically dumped them in the water I had placed in the sink, tragedy avoided, phew!)
What I noticed & plan for next time:
On the second batch I used 2 oz (in volume) of beans. The beans roasted pretty unevenly. Next time I will try using my wooden spoon to move the beans around when they look uneven. It also took about 30 seconds longer for this batch to get around to first crack. The way they roasted reminded me a lot of popcorn. A few cracks about 2 minutes in and a machine gun blast of cracks about 3 minutes in. I was more prepared to cool them this time by using a medal colander and a fan.
The final result looked and smelled pretty tasted but there was about 50 percent medium to dark roasted and 50 percent light. I am interested to see what this ends up tasting like tomorrow morning.
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