Horrible roasts from a popcorn popper

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
Soudr
Posts: 4
Joined: 8 years ago

#1: Post by Soudr »

Hello everyone,

I've been on here a few times and really appreciate all the everything you guys taught me!

I was recently gifted 1.5kgs of green coffee from Rwanda and decided to finally try my hand at home roasting with a popper (nice and cheap) to learn more about coffee and hopefully have some amazing coffee in the process! (How naive!)

My popper is 1200/1400 W machine, which claims a max capacity 100g popcorn.

first roast:

80g beans
1st pop: started lightly at 0.55 and intensified till 1.40
Machine auto shutoff at just before 2.00

Didn't get to 2nd pop.

Result:

Beans all over the place in term of roast, from barely kissed to totally charred.

Basically a fail...


2nd roast:

50g green beans (I figured they will move around more and have a more even roast)
1st pop: 1.00
Pop's intensified till the machine auto shutoff at 1.46

Result:

Really dark oily beans (I like lighter roasts), not as even as I expected but better (in terms of evenness)


I'm thinking of sticking to 50g for my 3rd roast but stopping the roast at 1.30, which should be somewhere within the continuous popping phase.


Does that sound logical? Or should I abandon the popper and find an alternative method (I would rather learn as much as I can first though!)

Really appreciate any feedback/advice !

Soud :roll:

Unrooted
Posts: 279
Joined: 8 years ago

#2: Post by Unrooted »

That is rediculously fast, even for a popcorn popper, I shoot for 8-9 minutes to first crack. I tried starting with a popcorn popper with poor results, so I switched to the Bread Machine heatgun method with very good results after about a month of weekly roasting.

robmatic
Posts: 58
Joined: 11 years ago

#3: Post by robmatic »

I agree, that is much too fast. In order to roast coffee properly, you need to slow things down. There are many ways of doing this, but basically you need to reduce the power going to the heating elements in your machine. There are zillions of guides out there to help you. It is perfectly possible to produce very good roasted coffee with a popcorn popper and a lot of us started out with them.

Soudr (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 8 years ago

#4: Post by Soudr (original poster) »

Thanks guys!

I suspected there was something off about how it was coming together!

I will have a look at some guides to slow things down (I've always been good at taking things apart, and making sure they absolutely don't work when reassembled, wish me luck!)

I think I will attempt to keep roasting on the popper, and if all else fails get myself a proper coffee roaster to expand my knowledge

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sweaner
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#5: Post by sweaner »

Try roasting with a heat gun and a stainless bowl. You can roast more at once and can get good control. Heat guns are inexpensive.
Scott
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h3yn0w
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#6: Post by h3yn0w »

Make sure your beans are spinning around in the popper to ensure an even roast and also to slow things down. If that's not happening use less beans until it does.

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yakster
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#7: Post by yakster »

One of the easier ways of turning down a popper without split wiring or using a router controller is to try it at the end of an extension cord, just to get an idea. I liked to load my popper so that the beans barely spin at the start and as they roast they pick up speed. Some people tilt or use a stir stick to start the roast.
-Chris

LMWDP # 272

Soudr (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 8 years ago

#8: Post by Soudr (original poster) »

h3yn0w wrote:Make sure your beans are spinning around in the popper to ensure an even roast and also to slow things down. If that's not happening use less beans until it does.
Thank you, will try that!

Soudr (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 8 years ago

#9: Post by Soudr (original poster) »

yakster wrote:One of the easier ways of turning down a popper without split wiring or using a router controller is to try it at the end of an extension cord, just to get an idea. I liked to load my popper so that the beans barely spin at the start and as they roast they pick up speed. Some people tilt or use a stir stick to start the roast.
Thank you Yakster, I will try those techniques before going crazy on the popper!

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LaCrema
Posts: 177
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#10: Post by LaCrema »

I just started roasting via air popper about 2 weeks ago and had great results! Can you tell us which air popper you're using, I know some are preferred over others.

I purchased my 1250w Proctor Silex "Popcorn Pumper" used off eBay for about $30.00 including shipping. So far I've roasted 5 batches in two sessions, each batch I use just less than one cup of Guatemalan beans from Peace Coffee here in Minneapolis per roast. My "technique" is that I basically add enough beans to let them spin around slowly at the start, the beans speed up as they roast and become lighter in weight.

The first time I roasted was outside on the back step of my house on a nice day (dry and 68°F), but I've noticed one significant thing while using the popper; outside air temperature plays a vital role in roasting times! My first roast was about 7-8 minutes to first crack, second crack was at about 10-11 minutes and I cut off the roast at about 12 minutes. I roasted another batch right after that, but ended up with a finish time of approximately 9 minutes?

The second attempt at roasting the outside temp was in the mid 50's F°and it took 14 minutes to barely get into second crack. I decided to take things indoors and my roasting times significantly dropped to about 8:30 total roast time with first crack at approximately 4:30 into the roast. The following two batches were pretty close to the same 8:30 roast time. I'm thinking that air poppers can work, but are sensitive to outside ambient temperatures. I'm starting to wonder if most home roasting methods are somehow impacted by ambient temperatures as a whole, and sometimes if you lack all the fancy sensors and software to monitor temperatures that roasting goes by feel (technique) versus rigid time tables, although your times did seem rather abrupt compared to what I've seen mentioned in other posts. I think 8-12 minutes total roast time could be a general expected timeframe for air poppers, but that's from what I've read and kind of experienced on my own.
"Outside the box Barista."

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