Roasting coffee beans in the wood stove

Last year I explained that life’s too short to drink bad coffee. That’s still true, of course. My preferred method of roasting, in fact the only one, was using a hot air corn popper. Well, after about 10 years of use, it finally quit. I hoped it would come back to life, but it didn’t. Not wanting to live without coffee, I had to figure some way to roast my beans. It wouldn’t be difficult to roast them on top of the stove, but I didn’t really want to fill the house with smoke from the roasting.

The solution was to roast them in the firebox of the wood stove. I put a couple handfuls of green coffee beans in a small cast iron skillet we have and set it on the coals or burning wood inside the firebox. I wear welding gloves while doing this since the skillet gets quite hot. I stir the beans often, trying to ensure that they are evenly roasted. It takes five or ten minutes to roast them, depending upon how hot the coals are.

One of the nice things about roasting them in the firebox is that the smoke from roasting is drawn into the stove and out the chimney, not into the house. I don’t mind the smell of the smoke from roasting coffee (actually, I like it), but it’s nicer for everyone to not fill the house with it. I’m thinking of roasting some in the oven to see how that goes. Maybe the smoke won’t be too much.

Last night, I ordered some more green coffee beans from the Coffee Bean Corral. They have some nice selections. I’ve almost finished the ones from my last order. I don’t really drink very much coffee (that’s my story, anyway). I like how it tastes and the feel of a warm coffee mug in my hands. It’s a simple pleasure.

When summer gets here, I’m going to have to find another method for roasting. Maybe I ought to come up with some kind of a drum roaster for on a grill or over a fire outside. . .