Step one in this process is always buy unroasted beans, and here is why:
Green beens are cheaper on average than pre-roasted beans.
They’re easy to buy online!
They’ll stay fresh for up to a year as opposed to the week or two weeks roasted coffee have before they go stale.
You might think you need an expensive piece of equipment to properly roast coffee beans, but really, you just need something that can apply oven-level temperatures to the beans and distribute the heat evenly.
You can actually use popcorn poppers to roast them — but not just any popper! You'll need a hot-air popcorn popper, or something like a Whirley-Pop stovetop popper.
Hot-air poppers work well because they blast the beans with a constant flow of hot air. As long as you put in less than 4 ounces of beans, that air will be strong enough to whip them around, evenly distributing the heat.
When roasting, monitor the beans for audible cracks that occur when they expand from the heat. A second crack means it's a medium roast, and about two minutes after that it'll become a dark roast. This roasting process usually takes five to eight minutes per batch. You'll need a bowl nearby to catch the chaff the popper spits out.
Working outside makes for easier clean up and will also prevent the possibility of your fire alarm going off from the heat of the roast!
After you've roasted your beans, pour them into an airtight container (like a mason jar or coffee bag) and wait a day or two to let them oxidize. Then you can grind them.
A blade grinder has a blade in the center of the grinder that looks like a propeller, similar to a blender blade. A burr grinder, however, is made up of two revolving abrasive surfaces (called burrs), in between which the coffee is ground, a few beans at a time.
Coffee aficionados tend to choose burr grinders over blade is because the beans are ground to a uniform size, and you have more control over your grind than you do with a blade.
A uniform ground is much harder to do in a blade grinder, especially if you are trying to do a coarser ground. A coarse grind is necessary for French Press, but for the brewing method we will use, a blade grinder and extra fine grind is perfect!
The Aeropress works by brewing the grounds at the bottom of a filtered chamber. All you do is scoop your ground coffee into the Aeropress chamber, fill the chamber with hot water, stir, put the rubber plunger in the chamber, push, and the coffee will drip through the filter with very little sediment.
Each Aeropress comes with a pack of 350 filters, so you likely won't run out for an entire year, but reusable metal micro filers are also available and work just as well!
Benefits of the Aeropress:
• Short brew time. Less acidity and bitterness. total immersion produces a fuller, richer flavor
• Even extraction unlike drip methods. Pour overs are great, but they take longer and require much more attention to detail and technique.
For the optimal brew in an Aeropress, water temperature is important! Boil your water and then let it sit for a minute before pouring it over your coffee. You want hot water, not boiling, to best extract the flavor from your coffee.
The real value of making coffee at home is learning what goes into a cup beyond your 30-second interaction with a local barista.
With this home coffee system, you'll probably spend the most on the beans themselves, which will always be a running cost. The rest of the equipment, ranging from anywhere from $15 to $45, will be paltry up-front costs that could save you lots of money in the long run.
You'll need to do a bit of trial and error to get your roasting down, but at the end, you'll have gained more than just savings.
The next thing to consider is the origin of the beans you buy.
Central and South American for clean and sweet, Africa for fruity and complex, Asia for earthy and luscious.