I wrote an article on home coffee roasting for Tastebud last night. I’m a big fan of home roasting, and have been explaining it to a bunch of folks over the past couple of months. I thought it was worth a write up, and might be interesting to you techie folks. http://tastebudchicago.com/blog/roast-your-own-coffee/
I also added a couple of my roast notes. I have a stack of index cards I need to enter into the site, a bunch of wines, cheeses, and coffees. The teeny coffee list is at http://tastebudchicago.com/coffees/.
If you like coffee, and have a DIY sort of ethic, coffee roasting is probably right up your alley. Get up on it.
I’ve got the book plus a FreshRoast Plus “8″ and I’m drinking some Sumatra Mandheling that I roasted this morning. The FreshRoast makes enough for about one pot of drip coffee in about 10-15 minutes (includes setup, cleanup, and cooling, with about 5 minutes for actual roast, depending on style). The top of it catches all the chaff, and I run it on a stovetop so I can use the hood fan for catching smoke. I haven’t actually bought any green beans yet; the beans and roaster were a gift. But the green beans do seem to last a long time.
Nice. I’ve thought about buying a machine, but still like doing it in the popcorn popper. Maybe this winter will convince me otherwise.