How hard could roasting beans at home really be? Sam and George go head-to-head in a coffee bread contest to find out, and Candy Schibli, the founder and chief roaster of Southeastern Coffee Roaster, provides expert advice.
Video transcript:
Here are the beans.
All right. So today we even try to roast coffee beans, in a frying pan with the help of our chemical knowledge.
And this is a challenge down to see who can roast the better beans. My…
… like me. It’s true to me.
Okay. So to prepare me for this challenge, I read a bunch of coffee, roses from blogs, and then really went through the YouTube rabbit hole. I think I have a plan to win.
I have done absolutely no research for this. So I’ll just completely wing it and see what happens.
I’m really doing a terrible job. I burn all the outside of the beans.
Are these meant to look like normal coffee beans?
Yes.
Hmm. I do not think it works that much.
These are possibly the most unevenly roasted beans I have ever seen in my life.
This is similar to professional roasted coffee. See how even that is. And then look at mine, professional mines.
About 10 minutes on the grill they were still greenish yellow. I bring them in here. I crawled up the heat.
Yes. These are really unusually roasted.
Well, I absolutely do not win this challenge with these beans. So I will try it again.
Today I think maybe ok is my label on this. And then this is my option.
You taste you first and then I’ll show you, I’ll show you what I do, okay.
This is not terrible.
Now the oops taste one.
I’m so scared to try this.
It smells a little burnt.
Yes. Like it doesn’t actually taste like coffee. To me. It has a terrible aftertaste. It’s really bad. It’s not comfortable.
I screwed it up from start to finish. And this is mine, this is my bag.
Okay.
I do not know if you can tell, but it is much lighter than our things.
Yes, it looks pretty weak.
Okay. Let me taste.
Do you know anything? That’s not half bad.
If I did not know better, I would be, h man, they brought this wrong, but it does not taste like I burned it.
That made us both mediocre to set up bad coffee, but it got us thinking.
Can we propose to a professional coffee, roaster, someone who delivers this and gets some tips or tricks or something to roast at home in a frying pan, actually working.
I decided to call someone who actually knows what they’re doing and I do this interview without George to make sure I win.
Candy Schibli is the founder of Southeast Roaster, where she is also the main roaster.
First, let me praise you for your exploration. I love it.
That’s like a really fun way to say like here’s a participation trophy.
Was there something when you started roasting, maybe it was during the process itself that you were so surprised?
Probably what surprises me the most, the actual sound that there is a sound component and an odor component that goes along with coffee bread, they are really distinct cracks and coffee that indicate a point in the roasting process.
And like at what point these cracks happen and how often they are, how abundant they are. They like to roll slowly. If they’re like real, real baby, you know.
That’s the thing about coffee bread that I found so interesting, is that there’s a very fine line between something that tastes really good and then taking it too far and being really gross.
It is generally a few seconds.
Yes. That’s so much pressure.
There is so much that could go wrong so quickly because of all the stuff that sits in a coffee bean. So what’s that thing?
They are mostly made from carbohydrates such as cellulose and soluble carbohydrates such as sucrose and glucose. They are also made up of lipids, proteins and the
“class =” glossaryLink “> amino acids which make up proteins.
All of these components are affected by roasting and are important for the aromas and flavors you associate with coffee.
And maybe you’ve heard about the potential health benefits of coffee that have to do with antioxidants.
Well, the antioxidant chlorogenic sour, it makes up about 10% of the bean caffeine, which I would personally say the number one attribute of coffee makes them about 2%.
And I had no idea before I started researching this. But caffeine content is actually not all that is caused by roasting when coffee beans are roasted, it is a super dynamic process, a lot of chemical reactions, but we are a range of temperatures.
Here is a really simplified version of that.
When you roast beans on a cast iron frying pan, bring them to about 200 degrees Celsius, throws the beans in afterwards.
When you throw the beans in the cake, they start to absorb heat. The beans begin to turn a yellowish gold, when compounds such as chlorophyll begin to decompose.
The kind of odors when you burn popcorn baby or toast.
The temperature of the beans builds up to a hundred degrees Celsius. The water in the beans will begin to evaporate the pressure of the water vapor as steam builds up enough to cause the first crack.
At about 200 degrees Celsius, the temperature of the beans rises and sugars, proteins and lipids begin to decompose.
This is a process called pyrolysis and it leads to the creation of some of the fruity citrus flavors that we associate with coffee. Like melanoidins, which give the bones their color.
At this point, a bump of various gases such as carbon dioxide are built up in the bean. Those cellulose walls cannot contain the pressure. That she’s crazy.
That’s the second crack. A bundle of aromatic compounds is also released during the second crack.
The bean is now medium to dark brown in color and has an oily sheen of the lipids that can now reach the surface since the cell wall is broken.
All right, things first. If you roast coffee in a frying pan at home, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get incredible roasted coffee grounds.
But if you have no other choice, here is Candy’s advice.
Having a cast iron shell, I think it’s a, is a good idea, especially since it’s just as hot. You know, you want to start the grill at about 400 and that includes the pan itself.
You can control the temperature of the grill yourself, but you can not control the temperature of the beans. And then that’s something that really affects how you roast. So you just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people.
You know, make sure the beans are constantly shaken or twisted, uh, for goodness sake, I would say 10 to 12 minutes, we’ll give you a generally a light roast.
Even with you shaking the pan. They will not even be super.
I’m just as excited to have fun, to just dive in and start with roses.
I want to, I want to taste them. You had to roast and please send something to me.
I do not know, however. I’ll be really embarrassed because you will be, Mmm, these are still very bad.
Take time for two. What I will do differently this time is roast the beans on a much lower heat setting. And hopefully that will last a longer period of time.
Let’s see how this goes.
I’m not sure how much better this is.
I’m really excited to do this.
George. You want to go first?
Here is attempt number two… in success mug.
Honestly, it does not smell better than the first time.
Min?
Here’s the thing I personally do not like, but this one tastes more like coffee than the first time I did it.
That you think you could get away with selling this to people?
I could sell this to a hipster for $ 8. Sure.
I’m pretty proud of myself. So I chatted with Candy Schibli and she gave me a lot of great tips. One of the best tips she gave me was not to pan up, at a very high temperature.
It was actually pretty successful I think. Let’s show you the beans.
They are pretty even brown. Oh, there we go. Not too bad.
Moment of truth. This is legally good. Actually. I’m so proud of myself that I took Candy’s advice.
I would say we can thank Candy for this.
I follow directions and I’m really happy about it.
That’s my win.
So cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers, Sam.
