The difference in flavor between freshly roasted and ground coffee and store bought or even gourmet coffee shop coffee must be experienced to be believed. We explained in this organic coffee article why coffee beans lose flavor very quickly after roasting.

Here are two ways to roast your own coffee for a few cents of electricity or gas with cookware that you already have, and one way that comes pretty close to a commercial roasting method for less than $20.

Cast Iron Skillet Method. Toss a pound or so of green coffee beans into a cast iron or heavy aluminum skillet on your stove top over medium heat. Stir the beans around with a wooden spoon to prevent burning and let them go for up to 20 minutes. When the beans are almost as dark as you want them pour them out into a dry colander and let them cool for about 12 hours before storing them in an airtight container.

Cookie Sheet Oven Method. Heat your main oven or a good size toaster oven to about 475 degrees. Spread the green coffee beans over a cookie sheet keeping them one layer deep. Depending on how evenly your oven heats you may want to rotate the cookie sheet every five minutes or so. Remove the beans from the oven into a colander when they reach the desired darkness and let them cool for about 12 hours.

Hot Air Corn Popper. You can get a Presto hot air corn popper for about $20. Pour the green beans into the hopper and plug in the popper. Start inspecting the beans for darkness after 5 minutes or so. When they look right air cool for about 12 hours before storing in an airtight container.

Don’t get too attached to the popper. Roasting coffee beans makes the popper work much harder than it was designed for so expect it to fail much sooner than it would have for its intended light duty use.

All these methods will produce roasted coffee beans ready for grinding to make a superior tasting cup of coffee or espresso. With some practice you can get consistent results. Make notes of the times and temperature settings for each batch.

Hold out a few roasted beans from your best batch and use them as a color guide for future batches. Coffee beans retain heat for much longer than you think. That means two things for you: the roasted beans will cause painful burns for a long time after they have been taken out of the oven, and two, the beans will continue to cook after they are removed from the heat. Once you know the final color you want for your perfect cuppa’ you will have to remove the beans from the heat when they are a few shades lighter than the final color.

The green coffee beans have been cleaned but there is still going to some chaff left over. When the chaff burns off it makes smoke. If any of these methods make too much smoke then move the process outside. You can use your gas grill for an oven. Light the burner on only one side and place a cookie sheet or roaster pan filled with coffee beans on the other side. It will quickly get up to temperature when you close the lid. Check every 5 minutes or so for desired darkness.

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