How to roast coffee beans. How to properly roast coffee beans

To date, there are still true coffee lovers who appreciate the taste of true coffee, allow themselves fry and grind grains on their own.
Every master has his own secrets. But, even without being a professional, after a short practice, this will seem like a simple and exciting activity.

Roasting levels for coffee beans:

• Raw grains are pale gray with a greenish tint, have a smooth skin and are practically odorless.
• Scandinavian roast distinguished by a light brown tint of beans that increase slightly in size. At this stage, a slight smell of bread appears.
• American roast comes at the moment when crackles or cracks begin, sugar crystallizes, the proportion of acid increases, the size of the beans increases a little more. The color becomes more brown.
• city determined by the end of the first stage of the crack.
• full city- Acidity and sugar are balanced in grains. The second stage of cracking is suitable. The clicks are much lighter and not as loud as the first time. The shade turns into a rich brown. The coffee will turn out rich in all shades of taste.
• viennese roast– the second stage of clicks is completed. Oil starts to come out. The color becomes brighter. There is a rich coffee aroma.
• Espresso- the smell becomes bittersweet. More oil comes out.
• At french roast the grains take on a darker brown hue. The acid is almost completely gone. The sweetness in the smell is replaced by the smell of burnt oil.
• Italian roast- an extreme degree, during which all oils are lost, and the color color approaches black. The smell characteristic of coffee disappears.

In practice, it is difficult to determine the exact degree of readiness of coffee. Often, coffee lovers use such degrees of roasting as Scandinavian, Viennese, French and Italian. Individual preference determines the required roasting stage for the coffee beans.


It is important to consider some characteristics of coffee:

• Smell. Upon initial heating, green coffee beans will take on a slightly yellowish color and smell of grass or hay. And already at the moment of full frying, the grains will begin to smoke and emit a coffee smell.
• Color. Roasting time is based on the color of the beans. Starting from green and ending with dark brown or even almost black. It is worth noting that the darker the beans, the richer the taste of the brewed coffee will be.
• Sound. You need to listen carefully to the cod. As soon as the grains begin to actually roast, the water from them begins to evaporate and crackling occurs. There are usually two stages of crackling that occur due to the increase in temperature.

Methods for roasting coffee beans

1. in a frying pan. To do this, you must use a cast-iron pan or a thick-walled aluminum and wooden spatula. It is advisable to use a clean spatula that has not been used to stir other products so that foreign odors are not transferred to the beans. The roasting process takes from 7 to 25 minutes, depending on the expected qualities of coffee (saturation, bitterness, astringency). To achieve uniform readiness, fry the beans over medium heat, stirring constantly.
2. In the oven. The oven must be heated to 230˚ and place a baking sheet with grains scattered on it. In order for the roast to be uniform, the baking sheet should be with slots or other holes in the bottom. Stir the coffee every 2-3 minutes and monitor the degree of readiness while stirring.

There are other ways: braziers, popcorn makers and special roasters. The principle of frying is almost the same for each device. But, regardless of the method, it is very important to immediately remove the finished beans from the hot surface, pour them onto a tray or other flat dish to speed up the cooling process. Then insist the grains for a day and after that you can grind them and use them for their intended purpose.

One of the main elements technological processing coffee beans What perhaps focuses all the skill and talent of coffee producers is the roasting process. Mature coffee beans are usually dark gray or greenish gray in color, have an unpleasant astringent taste, have no aroma, and are difficult to grind.

The significance of roasting as a technological process is to change these qualities of grains and create the most good taste, color and aroma of coffee, so that it manifests the properties of a tonic drink inherent only to it. It is thanks to roasting that coffee becomes “brown gold”, while the quality of roasting largely determines the grade of coffee.

At home, the best option is to roast coffee beans as close to the time as possible. It would not be an exaggeration to say that under production conditions this is a rather responsible operation in the coffee preparation technology, requiring special skills in using equipment, one can say a kind of art, which only rare roasters with extensive experience and high qualifications master.

The process of roasting coffee beans requires the strictest observance of all the nuances of its technology, because the slightest deviation from it or an extra few minutes of overexposure can completely spoil the taste of coffee. It is necessary to determine, to the nearest second, when coffee beans will be ready, that is, when a kind of “taste peak” appears in them, and immediately begin to cool them. Then, again under control, he should lie down.

Roasting coffee beans is usually carried out in a roaster (coffee oven) - at a temperature in the range of 180–200 degrees and continuous stirring, as a result of which uniform roasting of the beans is achieved. At the same time, it is very important to monitor temperature fluctuations, maintain it and the specified limits, skillfully regulate heating, since at a higher temperature than indicated, coffee grains can quickly char.

No less significant for the quality of roasting beans and roasting speed. If this process is carried out in a fast enough mode, the coffee beans begin to “sweat”, that is, fat appears on their surface, during slow roasting, the inner part of the grain will remain unroasted and coffee from such beans will turn out less than from the same beans, but well-roasted. In this case, it simply simply dries up and its extractive qualities are significantly reduced.

Composition and properties of roasted coffee beans.

Roasted coffee beans contain about 30% water-soluble substances. During the roasting process, the most complex physicochemical and biochemical processes occur in coffee beans, as a result of which the volume of the coffee mass increases by 1.3–1.5 times, and their weight decreases by an average of 18%. This is due to the loss of water beans and the decomposition of organic substances that are part of the mature, but not dried coffee beans.

At the same time, other properties of coffee also change, coffeeol is formed in it - a complex bouquet of aromatic substances. It contains about 70 different aromatic substances out of 2000 found in coffee. These are mainly decomposition products of proteins, sugars, fats: methyl alcohol, acetic acid, pyridine, maltol and others. All this variety of chemical compounds creates the aroma and taste of coffee.

However, the most effective value in giving coffee a pleasant specific aroma belongs to the alkaloid trigonelline, which is destroyed and converted into pyridine. Caffeine, trigonelline and sugar caramelization products give brewed coffee a pleasant bitterness, while chlorogenic acid gives an astringent taste. Caramelin in combination with other substances gives the grains a brown color. When evaluating grains, this color is compared with grains that have a reference color.

The procedure for roasting coffee beans at home in a skillet in the oven.

For roasting coffee beans at home, appropriate utensils are produced and commercially available, for example, cylindrical roasters. In everyday life, however, coffee beans are roasted in a good cast-iron or iron pan. But it should be used exclusively for this purpose, as coffee easily absorbs odors.

At the same time, coffee beans are first washed in a colander with water for 2-3 minutes. According to some recommendations, it should be kept in water for at least 10 minutes. Then they should be dried with a well-absorbing towel or scattered on a spread out canvas to dry.

Coffee beans are washed if they want to renew the smell of beans from the store. Then they are poured into the pan with a layer of 2-3 cm, put in the oven and, stirring occasionally, check their readiness. The degree of roasting is regulated by the intensity of temperature and the duration of heating. You should wait for a slight crackling of the beans and when they become intense brown and become matte, it is considered that the coffee beans are well roasted.

Too intense fire should not be made - the grains will quickly burn and become bitter. To make sure that the coffee beans are ready, you need to bite into one bean, and you will feel it. After roasting, coffee beans should be cooled quickly. Then they are poured into a container with an impenetrable tightly ground lid and stored in a dark, dry place, preferably at a low temperature.

The degree of roasting of coffee beans.

It is difficult to give a single recipe to what degree coffee should be roasted. The fact is that there are different varieties of coffee, and each of them requires its own roasting conditions and different times for this, but the main thing is that the tastes of the coffee consumer are different, which is why there is subjectivity in the assessments.

For some, the coffee will seem overcooked. For others, it's normal. Others are content with what they have. An important role in roasting coffee beans is played by established tastes, habits and national traditions. Based on the whole variety of tastes, coffee beans are prepared:

— Strong roast, dark roasted coffee.
- Medium roast.
— Weak or lightly roasted.
— Standard.
- Express roasting.
— Italian, French, American roast.

Generally, most coffee beans prefer a moderate degree of roast, since excessive roasting leads to carbonization - charring, and weak - to the manifestation of the greatest acidity of coffee. But this is a matter of taste. The French and Italians, for example, value deep-roasted coffee above all else. Light or medium roasted coffee is recommended to drink on and during the day, while heavily roasted coffee is good in the afternoon.

Based on the book "Coffee, 333 recipes".
Fomichenko K.V.

Choose the degree of roasting to your liking. The roasting process for green coffee difficult process, you just need to follow the recommendations that are given in this article.

Preparing coffee beans for roasting

First of all, green coffee must be washed to remove dust and husks that may be present in the bean package. In principle, the husk is not a hindrance to roasting, but the dust should be removed. Rinse with running water using a colander.

After washing, the green coffee beans should be dried by carefully spreading out on a clean cloth and flat surface in one layer. To speed up drying, you can use an ordinary hair dryer, turned on at a low air flow. After the grain has dried, the roasting process can begin.

Green coffee roasting process

Roasting coffee generates smoke and smell, so you need to open a window or turn on the hood. In the absence of a coffee roaster, you can use a wide, cast-iron skillet with thick walls.

1. Grains are poured into the pan and evenly distributed in 2-3 layers.
2. The frying pan is placed on medium heat. Coffee beans must be constantly stirred with a wooden spatula.
3. When a specific aroma appears and the grain turns yellow (after about 5-7 minutes), the fire is reduced to a small one so that the coffee does not burn. Do not forget to constantly stir it for even frying.
4. The process can be considered complete as soon as a characteristic aroma and a light blue smoke appear, and the grains have acquired a uniform brown color.
5. At the end, the grain must be poured into a metal baking sheet for cooling.

Most likely, the first time it will not be possible to achieve an even roasting of coffee, but after 3-4 attempts, a novice roaster achieves a good result.

Cooling roasted coffee

To fix the desired degree of roasting, the grain must be quickly cooled. To do this, it must be quickly poured into a cold metal baking sheet in one layer. In this case, the grains should not touch each other.

After the coffee has cooled, it must be placed in a suitable container and left for 10-12 hours, during which the grains "reach". After that, the grains are poured into an opaque, sealed container for storage. It is recommended to grind coffee immediately before preparing the drink.

Things to Consider When Roasting Green Coffee

At the beginning of the roasting process, the green grain begins to turn a little yellow, and the smell that comes out resembles the smell of dry grass. Gradually warming up, the coffee bean begins to smoke slightly, give off a pleasant smell and crackle. At this stage, you need to be extremely careful and increase mixing to avoid burning. Actually, at this moment, the roasting process itself begins - moisture leaves the grain and its physical and chemical properties change, essential oils come to the surface of the grains. The yellow color of the coffee begins to change rapidly from slightly brown to very dark. The most important thing at this stage is not to miss the degree of roasting you need.

Do not forget that the most important thing when roasting green coffee is constant and intense, but at the same time gentle mixing of the beans.

Today I will tell you how to light roast green coffee beans (arabica) in a regular frying pan on a gas stove. The article consists of several blocks. In each block, I tell you what to do and why.

I won't tell you why roast coffee at home, but I can tell you why you shouldn't. It is rather difficult to roast the grain evenly and with high quality, and most likely it will not be possible to do everything right the first time. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you take cheaper grain for the first experiments in roasting. Spoiling dear Colombia San Pascual would be a shame.

Required Tools

What needs to be prepared:

• gas (electric) stove;
• cast aluminum or cast iron frying pan (stewpan) without non-stick coating;
• whisk for whisking or wooden spatulas (for mixing grains);
• stopwatch;
• a clean, dry metal pan in which the grains will cool. It is highly recommended to have a kitchen scale.

Why is it necessary:

• Gas stove

  In fact, it doesn’t matter if you roast coffee on a gas or electric stove. But I will give examples for a gas stove - I have no other stoves. By the way, you can read about the positive experience of roasting grains in a convection oven.

• Pan
  It is very important to follow a few rules. The pan must be absolutely clean inside, no soot and adhering fat. Yes, you have to clean the dirt down to the metal. Ideally, for coffee, you should have a separate frying pan in which nothing but coffee should be fried.

  It's hard to find a non-stick aluminum frying pan or casserole these days, so you can use a non-stick frying pan that has been cleaned inside to "like new" condition. But even in a well-washed pan, the smell of previously cooked dishes may remain. To get rid of odors, boil water with detergent in a pan for 5-10 minutes and rinse thoroughly. A lid is not needed during the frying process.

• Spatulas or whisk for mixing

  Stirring the beans is a very important part of the roasting process and the most difficult. The point of mixing is to turn the beans over so that they are evenly fried on each side. Therefore, you can mix coffee with any object that will allow you to turn the beans as intensively as possible, for example, whisk for whisking.

  If you don't have a whisk, you can use wooden spatulas. During frying, the pan gets very hot, also heating your hands. In order not to burn yourself, I recommend choosing shoulder blades with long handles. By the way, in order to stir the grains with the required intensity, it will be more convenient to use two blades at once, as Andrey Laube does in his video. We need new blades (wood is not a frying pan, you can’t really wash off the fat), the cheapest ones from the nearest supermarket will do.

  Personally, I liked stirring coffee with a whisk more than spatulas. It is not necessary to turn the grains over by shaking the pan: lifting the pan from the stove, you violate the heating mode.

• Stopwatch

  Available in almost every cell phone. We will determine the exact roasting time using a stopwatch (and not only). Make sure your phone's screen with the stopwatch on doesn't turn off while roasting.

• Tray for cooling grains

  Roasted grain must be immediately poured onto a cold baking sheet. The baking sheet is good because it will quickly take away some of the heat and you can spread the grains on it in a thin layer so that they cool faster. If you don't have a baking sheet, any clean metal dish will do, into which you can pour and spread your roasted beans in a thin layer.

Roasting coffee

Step 1

What to do?

Measure on the scales 150 or 200 grams of green coffee. Prepare a baking sheet to cool the grain.

Why is that?

During the roasting process, coffee grows in volume and loses weight. With a light roast, coffee loses at least 13% of its weight, depending on the variety, humidity, etc. That is, 150 grams of greens will turn into 130 grams of light roasted coffee, and 200 grams of greens will turn into 174 grams of roasted coffee.

If you ruin the roast, then throwing away 150 grams of coffee is not as pathetic as throwing away a pound or a kilogram.

Roasted grains must be immediately poured into a baking sheet and begin to cool them. There will be no time to search for a baking sheet: prepare it in advance. I will talk more about cooling down below.

Step 2

What to do?

Turn on the middle burner on the gas stove, twist the fire so that it burns at half power. Heat up an empty pan for 10-15 seconds, pour green grains into it, turn on the stopwatch and immediately start mixing the grains.

Roasting time will be from 8 to 15 minutes, depending on the strength of the fire.

Why is that?

If the fire is stronger, then you can manage faster. But it increases the chance of getting a smoky coffee at the end of the roast. If you roast it on a very low heat, you can get unroasted (albeit darkened) coffee of a nasty grassy taste in an hour.

It is not necessary to heat up an empty pan for a long time, as the chance of getting uneven roasting or a smoky taste greatly increases.

Step 3

What to do?

Stir coffee vigorously. Not a single grain should lie in its place for more than one second. We carefully observe the grains. We look at the stopwatch at the moment when the grains began to crack (not one at a time, but all at once in a bunch), remember this time.

Why is that?

The more vigorously you stir the beans, the more evenly the roast will be. I remind you again: you can’t stop for a second. Pay attention to the grains at the edge of the pan. As I wrote above, the point of intensive mixing is to turn the grains, and not just kick them in the pan. It is necessary that each grain is evenly heated on each side.

Closer to 5-9 minutes (depending on the strength of the fire), the coffee starts to crackle. When the grains begin to crack not one at a time, but simultaneously (like popcorn, only a little quieter) - this is the beginning of the first crack. From this moment, the development of grain begins, it continues until the end of the roast.

Step 4

What to do?

Intensively stir the grains, looking at the stopwatch. Remove the pan from the heat at such a point in time that the grain development time (from the beginning of the first crack until the end of roasting) was 20-25% of the total roasting time. After removing the pan from the heat, immediately pour the fried grains into a baking sheet and begin to cool the grains.

Why is that?

As I wrote above, grain development should be 20-25% of the roast time. That is, if the first crack occurred 7 minutes 30 seconds after the start of frying, then at 9.30-10 minutes after the start of frying, you can remove the pan. If the first crack started 9 minutes after the start of roasting, then stop roasting after three minutes (total roasting time will be 12 minutes).

If everything works out as it should, the intensity of the crackle decreases significantly by the end of the roast, the grains crackle one at a time, and not all at once, as in the middle of a crack.

Pour the grains onto a clean, dry metal baking sheet and proceed to cooling.

Roasting coffee beans is the most important process in obtaining delicious coffee. After all, it is during the roasting of grains that complex aromatic compounds are formed that give coffee its indescribable taste and aroma.

To roast green coffee beans at home, you will need a cast iron skillet and wooden spatulas to stir the beans.

An important element in making coffee is constant stirring., this must be done constantly, without interruption, otherwise everything will burn. The beans are only roasted evenly when they are constantly stirred, but this increases the cooking time significantly.

The roasting time depends on the number of beans - one hundred grams of beans will cook for about 10-15 minutes, a pound of coffee - half an hour, a kilogram - an hour.

1. To begin, heat the pan over a fire for a minute. Next, pour green grains into it.
2. At the initial stage, there is a slight heating of the grains and the removal of moisture. Due to this, they begin to mix much faster, as if spilling over, which means that tiny drops form on their surface. essential oils. Therefore, it is easier to stir such coffee than at the beginning of the process.
3. Next comes the stage, which is a kind of color variation - from light yellow with a greenish tint to light brown. This level of roasting can be called pre-cooking, that is, the grains are not yet ready, but they are no longer green. Such coffee is considered environmentally friendly. If before this stage the smell was a little woody, then at the moment the aroma of familiar coffee is already a little noticeable. This indicates that the process is nearing completion.
4. After a short amount of time, some grains begin to expand significantly and explode. The grains are almost ready. Such a roast is called weak, some varieties of such coffee can already be consumed.
5. Next comes the stage when the grains acquire a brownish tint. They are not quite ready yet, but the roasting should be stopped in advance. The fact is that even when cooling, they are still fried due to the temperature inside them. Therefore, at this stage, you should take two containers, pour grains into one of them and pour them from one to the other. This is how cooling happens. At the same time, unnecessary husks fly off from the grains.

Best brewed and has more rich taste oriental coffee. For its preparation, the grains are ground into powder.