Videos For The Week Of October 24, 2011

More Methods For Roasting Your Own Green Coffee Beans

I found three additional methods for roasting your own Dark Roast Coffee. I am finding that a lot of folks out there are very inventive when it comes to making devices to make their own dark roasted blend. I hope you will find these as interesting as I have. I don't recommend two of them for the obvious safety issues they have. Do these at your own risk - I don't want to be responsible for anyone burning down their home.

As Always, may your next cup be your best.

I-Roaster

Another home roasting machine - it is fairly automatic and seems to work well. The Australian machine is designed to run on 220-240 volts. If you can set up the correct electrical power for it, it will run you around $424.95, in Australian Dollars. The information on the web site says that those wanting it for international use should contact them about it.

Using A Bread Maker To Roast Coffee

In this method, the roaster uses a bread making machine to stir the beans and uses a hot air gun to roast the beans. If you don't mind having chaff all over your kitchen, I guess it is a great way to roast your beans. I don't endorse this one for safety reasons!

Coffee Roasting African Style

This contraption uses an old computer case as a power supply, an electric screwdriver to spin the basket full of beans over a burner. It is messy and looks like a really big fire hazard - do this at your own risk!!

Café Solano by Peet's Coffee - Review

Peet's Coffee Café Solano

With the very first taste of this coffee, you can tell it's a medium roast. It has a pleasant mouth feel, and some good depth to the flavor. (I know, I am supposed to stick to dark roast coffee for the blog, but wait this is good stuff - read on!)

I tasted this coffee as an Americano. This blend has no noticeable bitterness and is very pleasant as an unsweetened coffee; the roasters at Peet's Coffee have been very successful in bringing out the best in these particular coffee beans.

As the coffee cools you notice a slight amount of bitterness - this coffee is very smooth.

This is an excellent coffee for sipping all day and would also be excellent with almost any meal.

If you have a guest that prefers the more traditional coffee such as Folgers or other commercial brands I would recommend this for them. This coffee is not overpowering and not excessively strong. It just has a great taste and smoothness that almost anyone can appreciate.

Upon sweetening, this coffee shows it's smooth character even further. This would be a great coffee for after dinner as a desert by itself. A good pairing with this would be a slice of apple pie or even just some freshly sliced apples.

This is a quality coffee that will not disappoint. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate this at 9.3 - the quality of this coffee is obvious from the very first sip.

I hope this will help you in your search for a great cup of coffee. And, as always, may your next cup be your best!

Video For The Week Of October 10, 2011

The Swiss Water Process for Decaffeination

In an earlier blog I discussed decaffeinating of coffee. I would like to go back to this subject with this video. It shows, with simple illustration, how your dark roast coffee is decaffeinated. The green coffee beans are carefully selected, then processed using carbon filters and water. The thing that is unique is that the water is saturated with the extract of green coffee beans, minus the caffeine. This allows the water to remove ONLY the caffeine from the green beans.

I think this is a very informative video and I hope you will enjoy it.



As always, may your next cup be your best!