Coffee: A hot topic

You are indeed blessed as to your situation in time and space. Craft brewers aren’t competing for the Michelob Lite and Coors Lite crowd. We too have some fantastic local brewers (DFW area) and a couple of Texas brewers (Shiner) who made reliably tasty and seasonal brews (Fat Tire in the summer, Christmas Ale in the winter).

And your local supplier of green coffee beans is also fortunate. If that fails, or if you want to try some varieties from places other than Columbia, go here, which is where I get all my greens, usually at around $4 to $4.50 a pound which includes shipping. I’ve sampled coffees from Indonesia, Sumatra, Ethiopia (Yirgacheffe is my favorite African variety), Kenya, Uganda, Brazil (Legender peaberry is way yummy), Peru, El Salvador (some of my fave varieites!), Nicaragua, and Mexico. Some of the fun is noticing how varieties from different countries do in deed taste differently.

Others have already done this. Many hundreds of them. Check out these vids and then ask me questions.

When scanning the videos linked above, you’ll run across some fancy DIY features that some guys implement. If that’s your thang, go for it. I have never used more than a heat gun (a 1200 watter is plenty), two stainless steel dog bowls from Wal-Mart, sandwiching some fiberglass insulation I pulled out of the attic, and an 18-inch wire whisk. Oh, yes, add an old ratty glove on the hand that you use to stir with the whisk. That whisk can get hot.

I roast two pounds of greens at a time. The flying chaff and the smoke (I take it to a Vienna roast - about 2 minutes into second crack; lots of smoke!) make the garage the proper venue for roasting.

Like I said, I’ve been doing this for many years now. Once I tried it and brewed up a pot, I never darkened the coffee aisle in a grocers again.

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