Coffee: we drink it or we get angry.

Same boat here, but I should get it next week. They're shipping the bulk order to the Amazon VA warehouse, which is about 70 miles away, so it should be here by Wednesday.

 

Hey, I'm off to Cali for my first time tomorrow. I'll be there Friday - Monday, near San Francisco. Any good coffee shops I should hit up?

 

In case advice is too vague, follow your nose

 

Blue Bottle

 

Blue Bottle vote #2. Their Berry Street cafe is the original.

Sightglass is great, too. Also check out Four Barrel and Wrecking Ball.

 

I'll make sure to hit up at least Blue Bottle and "follow my nose," thanks for the recs!

 

in last ten years coffee that is sold here locally start to deteriorate in quality, taste was bad and i would get stomach acidity from it. So i started half - blindly ordering from ebay until i found this year ago and i love it. It has caramel taste like no other i tried, and it doesn't need much sugar to be tasty. Bear in mind i am no coffee connoisseur or anything like it
http://www.ebay.com/itm/14oz-20-Pou...hash=item3603f3a975:m:mRq76hQOIwKrIZGYBHyDphw

 

Do you do your own roasting? That is something I'm interested in trying.

 

no i dont roast beans, i buy them already roasted half or full city

 

I'm confused because that auction is for raw green coffee beans...

 

Yeah sry it was another auction sent from Panama and it had options for half or full city that one is from USA, but it have same bag on pictures so i mixed it ill try to find it than re-post

i logged in but it is out of stock and i cant find any other seller that gives that option, it was 260 for 9 pounds

 

I was a roaster for several years until my second kid came along and I was running a business while also working full time.. just didn't have the time anymore. It was fun and a good learning experience. I tried many different methods. In the end I was using a Behmor 1600. My best roasts came from a frankenroaster that I cobbled together from modded stir-crazy popcorn popper and a circular convection oven with some other parts. I controlled this roaster to the degree but it required close monitoring throughout the whole roast. These days I always buy fresh-roasted either from a couple of local roasters or from various online roasters such as Counter Culture Coffee or Topeca Coffee in Tulsa.

 

I bought this roaster a year ago and it works pretty well without being stupid expensive:

https://www.sweetmarias.com/product/gene-cafe-roaster-red

With it I only have to roast a few batches on a Saturday and then I have enough to last the week for 5 people. The unintended consequence is that now my kids are coffee snobs....

 

crazychile very interested.. is this the best roaster in that price range? I might get into this

 

My mom and aunt use to roast it also in the oven i will order some of the fresh beans and give my mom to do it, who knows maybe it will taste great. I don't think that guys in panama have some fancy connected to pc roasters that today's hipsters have but it taste great anyway.

i called my mom she said that they did it in something called dolap over fire and not in the oven and that she didnt roast coffee in years and that i will not be able to do it and to just buy regular coffee lol

 

I think the Behmor 1600 plus is also a great option. Behmor has really great customer support and you can choose either preset profiles or manual control. It's about $200 cheaper than the Gene Cafe but I'm sure you can also find them used pretty easily.

 

The main thing to know about roasting in an enclosed space is that coffee beans have chaff that comes off during the roasting process. In an oven this chaff can catch fire. Also, the biggest problem with this is that for an even roast the beans must be constantly agitated during the roasting. I don't see how an oven could offer agitation while maintaining temperature. In Ethiopia it is standard practice to roast in a big pan over an open fire and then grind and drink it immediately. I prefer the coffee to rest a few days after roasting for best flavor.

 

@DigMe thanks for explanation

 

Like @DigMe says, the Behmor is supposed to be pretty good too. I almost bought one of those instead but read some reviews that it doesn't get hot enough for dark roasts. It turns out my tastes have changed and I went from a French Roast guy to something more in the Full City to Full City+ range, so the Behmor probably would have worked fine for me.

 

You can also try one of those hot air popcorn poppers. I started with one of those mostly as an experiment. They don't roast much at a time, and you have to do it outside because it makes a mess with all the chaff that comes off, but it's kind of a fun way to get into roasting for very little money