Black Bean and Chipotle Chili
Made with fresh tomatoes, red peppers, onions, black beans and chipotle chili peppers, Kavarna's Chipotle and Black Bean Chili is spicy and good.
While the cast iron pan on the stove method of roasting coffee definitely worked, there were some disadvantages: 1.) it produced A LOT of smoke and roasting coffee does not smell as good as you think it should (Linda complained); 2.) the roast was not very even, some beans were over done and some were under done; and 3.) it was messy, the chaff flew all over the stovetop. I'd read online about the use of old air poppers as coffee roasters at sweetmarias.com and elsewhere and it seemed the simplest and least expensive way to get good results. So this weekend I retrieved my mother's air popper from the back of her cupboard (hadn't been used in many years) and gave it shot. Click on the extended entry for all the photos!
First, you need to get your tools ready. This is my colander, as it turned out, this one was too small. Use a larger one!
Second, you're going to need some unroasted coffee. As it happened I had some excellent Direct Trade coffee from Intelligentsia in Chicago. I don't think they sell to the public, but sweetmarias.com is a good place to start.
The popcorn popper can handle about 4 ounces of coffee. To make it worthwhile, I've been doing two batches per roasting session, or a total of a 1/2 pound of coffee.
I'm not sure if it's been strictly necessary, but I have been letting the popper warm for about a minute before putting the coffee in. My reasoning is that the first minute gives me a better and more consistent baseline for timing the roast.
Green coffee in the popper! Make sure the popper is positioned by an open window, or under an oven hood.
Slightly browner coffee in the popper!
The chaff (the flaky outer layer) will separate from the coffee, drift out, and fall into the waiting bowl.
You will hear some cracking noises. There is the first crack, and then the second crack. I'm still learning about this stuff, but it seems to be good to wait until the second crack to stop roasting.
This was about 5 and a half minutes of roasting, kind of a medium roast and well suited to the coffee. At this point it will be a bit smoky, so it makes sense to take it outside and agitate it. More chaff will come off and the air will help cool the beans and end the roasting.
All in all, it's a satisfying process. I've now done this three times and while some roasts have been more successful than others, they've all produced wonderful cups of coffee. I don't know if I'll continue doing it regularly, after all, I have access to beautifully roasted and fresh coffee all of the time, but it's helped me understand the product that we serve!
