Ahhhhh... Fresh Coffee!

For those of you who like coffee, there's nothing quite like fresh roasted coffee instead of what you get at the store.  I started roasting coffee a few years ago using hot air popcorn poppers (it's actually very easy).  For our tenth anniversary,  Kate bought me a Nesco Coffee Roaster.  It has a catalytic converter so that you can roast inside without smoke filling up your house (which can be a problem with a lot of different roasting techniques).  It's almost fool-proof way to roast 4 ounces of coffee and using it fills the kitchen with a wonderful coffee aroma (without the smoke).

The biggest downside of this roaster is that it doesn't like to make dark roast coffee.  What you have to do is unplug the roaster and plug it back in before it gets to its cool-down period.  After doing this a few times, I bought a switch into which I plug the roaster, so I can just flip it off and then on when needed.

Almost certainly not what the makers of this roaster have in mind, but it works pretty well for me.

One thing about roasting coffee.  After finishing the roasting, it tastes the best if you let it sit 12 to 24 hours before roasting (which the exception of decaf which apparently you can drink right away for peak taste).  For anybody who is interested, I highly recommend Sweet Maria's.  This is where I buy almost all of my green unroasted coffee.  They are willing to sell you a $3000 roaster as well as tell you how to roast coffee using a hot air popcorn popper you can pickup at Walgreens for $10.