Today is coffee-roasting demo day!  Start out with green coffee beans. We're using some canned beans we had stored away.

Green beans are not really green---they're sort of brownish, tannish green. Green beans have a shelf life of a gazillion years. Mice don't like them, neither do insects, so you can stock up on these little gems with no worries that they'll go rancid or get eaten by critters.

Here is a comparison of green beans and some coffee that has just been roasted. 

Roasting can be done in a skillet on the stove, in the oven,  or, my personal favorite in an 80's style hot air popcorn popper.  This pic shows us roasting beans in a skillet. To do this, place a layer of coffee beans on the bottom of an iron skillet.  Don't grease the pan. (The coffee is greasy all by itself.) As the coffee is being roasted, all kinds of things happen: the color goes from greenish, to tan, to light brown. If you like dark roasted coffee, keep going until the coffee beans take on a greasy sheen. While the roasting process is going on, the chaff which has been surrounding the little beans will start to pop off and soon the air around you will have little pieces of chaff floating around. The beans also create a good deal of smoke, so have a fan going. When I use the popcorn popper, I do the whole process outside. Much tidier.

Coffee goes through 2 stages of roasting separated by a distinct 'cracking' sound. For dark roast, wait until you hear 'second crack' before you remove the beans from the heat source. Tom and I prefer dark roasted coffee to city roast (what the regular roast is called). As soon as that greasy sheen shows up, remove the skillet from the stove.  There is a fine line between dark roast and 'burnt' roast. So keep an eye on them and when the beans are perfectly roasted,  quickly dump them in a strainer. You don't want more roasting taking place while they're being cooled. (Don't run water over them to cool them! Just bounce them around in the strainer or have them sit in front of a fan!)

Let the coffee sit overnight in an open container before you grind it for your morning coffee. Those lovely little bean need to, um,  out-gas for a few hours. Also...the smell of roasting coffee is not what you think it should be.  It smells like grass or hay that's been smoldering. Do not be alarmed.  This is normal. After 24 hours, your coffee will have the aroma you've come to associate with heaven. 

Here's the link for Sweet Maria's, our 'go-to' site for everything coffee. 

http://www.sweetmarias.com/index.php