homecoffeeroasters

After I gave him the money and he counted it, he nonchalantley tossed me the baggy filled with prized beans.

“Here ya go pal, I full half pound of the  finest Limoncillo in the Bay Area,” he said in his dry baritone. “Check out the size of those bad boys, they are practically canoes,” He added.

“Yeah these beans are pretty darn big” I agreed, as I glanced down at the bag, trying to act as casual as the dealer, but really want to just stash my beans  safely  away, and examine them further inmy nice little lair, away from any prying eyes.  I felt the beans through the dirty, saggy,  plastic baggy feeling the large canoe shaped beans within.  I  would not be needing that extra screen on my converted roaster, that was for sure. Curiosity got the better of me and I held them up for a better look, these beans were absolute monsters. Made me wonder if they were grown in a laboratory somewhere, and not some hidden  plantatation deep in the Panamanian rain Forest.  I had heard that Limoncillo was big, but these were ridiculous.

A cacophony  erupted in the dark recesses of the alley, A door slammed, a cat screeched. I panic and and hurriedly shoved the baggy into the crotch of my pants. The cat who screeched flew by and then the dealer broke out into  a hearty laugh.

“Hey man, chillax.” He said to me, then started laughing even harder.

“Man, you shoved  those nuggets under your own nuggets faster than you can say two can sam.” He slapped his knee. “Don’t worry man, the cops around here got better things to worry about than some measly half pound of beans.”

He was right, Oakland’s dirt epidemic, made my little coffee club small potatoes.  Besides, know one around here really took the President’s ban seriously. What the hell were we going to do? Drink Tea?

I Extracted the beans from my pants, shoved them in my satchel, said adios, got on my smartbike and rode off into the night. Back to my lair.

I  had people counting on me.

Here is a pick of my new set up in the corner of my kitchen. As you can see my lab comes fully equiped with all the necessary tools. The found the littlewatchumallkit that my Nesco is resting on in my buildings garage. People like to toss out the nicest things. The door on this little piece of furniture (I guess its a bureau or something) had fallen off and somebody decided that they did not want it anymore. All it needed was a little gorilla glue and now its a great place to store all my coffee related accessories along with a roasting pan and a wok I never happen to use.It is kind of nice having all my stuff in one tidy little corner instead of spread out all over the kitchen like they once were.

The little dustbuster that you see is a godsend when you happen to own a roasting machine like the Nesco . Chaff gets everywhere and its nice to have something to suck it all up. I have even gotten into the habit of dustbusting my roast before I pour it into the waiting cooling jar. This  came in especially handy the other day when I roasted up some Burundi Kayanza Bwayi No:7. This batch  of beans is really chaffelicious. This baby throws out so much chaff , that if it were president it would be called Chafferham Lincoln. If it were a Rapper it would go by MC chaffychaff (before it gets big and starts going by “Chaffy”). If it were a supermodel…

Ok I will stop . I think you get that it produces a whole buttload of chaff. It got all over the damn place the last time I roasted it, so this time I made sure to have my trusty little chaff sucker handy to clean up the mess and keep my new lab nice and tidy once again.

I went and bought myself a foodsaver in hopes that I might use it to extend the life of the beans that I roast and send away to others. It works pretty good, but I am hoping to find some pre-made bags so I do not feel like a dressmaker when I construct a bag of a proper size from the roll that came with the machine.

I have also been experimenting on how fresh I can keep roasted coffee by keeping in an an airtight package. Right now, I have some of that  Rwandan coffee from Sweet Marias hanging out in a bag to be enjoyed later. The only problem, is that the vacuum part of the bag did not work on the bag and it contains a pocket of air. This will not doubt speed up the process of deterioration but I am too lazy to make another bag. I think the failure of the vacuum pump has something to do with how I made the bag (its a tad bit uneven).

Anyways, my ultimate plan is, is to to try to sell freshly roasted coffee on e-bay to people who want fresh roasted delicious coffee, but do not have the time or resources to do it themselves ( we all cannot be coffee nerds now can we?) Hopefully, I will get some good feedback from the peeps who got a complimentary bag from me. Who knows, maybe ol BS will make enough to support his own habit.