Free The Art and Craft of Coffee by Kevin Sinnott

minutes to roast. This is good in general, but it can be stressful trying to hit the cooling cycle button at just that magic moment.
• Perfect yield. Drum roasters typically roast a half-pound of coffee, which many coffee drinkers consider just the right amount for their use. More generous hobbyists roast extras for friends—increasing their social standing considerably.
• Developed, complex flavor. Many in the coffee industry believe drum roasters offer great complexity of flavors. Whether this is due to longer roast times or type of heat compared to fluid-air roasting is the subject of intense debate. It calls for more taste tests.
• No noise. Most drum roasters are extremely quiet, allowing the roast master to listen for the subtle distinction of the first and second cracks.
    Cons
• Bad visibility. Many drum roasters don’t allow you to view the beans as they roast. This is a big disadvantage. Commercial drum roasters feature tryers, catchers that allows the roast master to remove bean samples to check their doneness. But most consumer drum machines don’t have this feature, restricting you to listening and smelling.
• Slow cooling. Drum roasters typically dump the justroasted beans onto a turntable. Commercial machines feature forced air to speed cooling, but most home machines don’t. Rapid cooling ensures that your beans stop roasting when you choose to stop roasting them. Most experts believe rapid cooling improves flavor.
Materials
Green beans
Digital scale
Drum roaster
Heat-safe gloves
Mason jar (or other glass container)
Fire extinguisher, in case of roasting fire

Expert Notes on Drum Roasting
Here are some tips on drum roasting:
• If your home drum roaster does not offer incylinder cooling, use oven mitts or heat-safe gloves to carefully pour roasted beans into colander following the roast. Then pour them into a second colander. Repeat this back-and-forth process to cool the beans. Some advanced home roasters prefer this method to in-machine cooling, claiming it is faster and therefore better at halting the roasting process.
• If the roaster offers pre-timed cycles, choose one that will likely roast darker (longer) than you wish. You can always stop a cycle in the middle.
• True believers in home roasting can go as far as modifying a gas barbeque grill to roast up to three pounds (1.4 kg) of beans per load. One roaster even gutted his backyard grill and paid a local sheet metal worker to fashion a proprietary perforated metal drum designed to spin using a rotisserie attachment. His grill roaster has been so successful that he’s become a weekly attraction at his local farmers’ markets.
    Instructions
1. Measure the recommended amount of green beans using your digital scale and pour them into open end of the cylinder.
2. Gently shake cylinder to evenly distribute the beans (a) .
3. Seat the cylinder (drum) into the machine’s track to ensure it turns properly. Add the chaff collector (b) .
4. Start the drum roaster. Always begin with a cool machine unless otherwise directed by the manufacturer.
5. Wait for the popping sound to begin, indicating the first crack stage.
6. Once the beans finish popping, a brief silence will occur before the beans begin their second crack, a faster sound reminiscent of crackling fireplace logs. Begin the cooling cycle at any time from this point.
7. Don your heat-safe gloves. After the cooling cycle ends, open and empty the chaff collector (c) .
8. Carefully remove the drum from the machine (d) and pour the beans into a glass jar for storage.
9. Following each roast, blow any remaining chaff out of the machine.
Drum Roasting Tutorial

    Fluid-Air Roasting
    In this method, developed in the mid-1900s, beans roast by floating on a bed of hot air. Its commercial predecessor was the Jabez-Burns Thermalo drum roaster noteworthy for using a stream of heated fluid air shot through the drum’s center, producing similar results. In the fluid-air roasting method, hot air