HOWTO Pan Roast Coffee
This looks like a good howto on pan roasting your own coffee beans.
The only way to understand a coffee is to roast it. Depending on how far you roast a coffee it can have a strikingly different flavor and body in the cup once brewed.
Typically speaking the lighter roasts will have more origin character (the beans actual flavors rather than roast induced flavor) and acidity with a muted body or mouth feel. However if you stop the roast too soon before the roast has fully developed the coffee will have a sour and/or grassy flavor. A hint of sourness in some coffees in my opinion can be a wonderful thing, but too much and well…YUCK!
Medium roasts can create a balance between the sometimes raw, aggressive origin character and the intense carbony roast flavors. Medium roasts will also have a heavier body than lighter roasts.
Darker roasts will have a pronounced roast flavor which are often carbony, pungent and sharp. Most of the beans flavor will have been replaced with roast flavors and body is usually at it’s heaviest. But roast too far and the coffee can be destroyed, with a thin body and an ashy, charcoal and/or burnt rubber taste!
- Link (via MAKE: Blog)
