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Step 3How to know when to stop
A 'green' coffee bean may be a number of shades of green, from a pure green to almost blue to a slightly greenish tan/yellow. Once you start roasting, they slowly change from green to yellow to mildly tan, then slowly darken through a series of browns. If roasted long enough, they turn very black and oily, though even Starbucks rarely overcooks them that far. The range of colors can be seen on the Degree of Roast Pictorial from Sweet Maria's.
Once the beans start turning from tan to a true brown, they will begin to make a cracking noise, known among roasters as "first crack". (Roasters are not always a creative lot.) It sounds like a mix between popcorn popping and walnuts cracking. The bean is rapidly expelling moisture, giving off a cracking noise. This happens at about the same time that the sugars in the bean begin to caramelize. First crack will begin with just one or two cracks, then will quickly gain momentum. Some batches will seem like only a few crack, while others will seem like every bean cracks twice, all at once. But after a few moments, the cracking will slow to a stop. At this point, if you want a light roast, stop roasting.
If you want a medium roast, keep going until you begin to hear another cracking noise, creatively dubbed "second crack". This one sounds like more of a snap, somewhere between snapping a pencil in half and tapping fingernails on a metal desk. This crack is due to the beans cellular structure cracking apart. When you first hear a second crack, you can pull the roast for a medium/dark medium roast. Or you can keep going. At this point you can bring it into a rolling (continuous) second crack, which gets you into the range of a dark roast. The outsides of the beans get oily at this point, and as you keep going you can go past dark to extra dark roast, then Vienna roast, then French roast, then pure charcoal, and finally on to a Starbucks roast. Eventually they can literally just catch on fire.
When you have reached the level you want, turn off the heat source, empty the bowl into a cooling device, and cool away. The next few steps will explain what sort of gear to use.
Once the beans start turning from tan to a true brown, they will begin to make a cracking noise, known among roasters as "first crack". (Roasters are not always a creative lot.) It sounds like a mix between popcorn popping and walnuts cracking. The bean is rapidly expelling moisture, giving off a cracking noise. This happens at about the same time that the sugars in the bean begin to caramelize. First crack will begin with just one or two cracks, then will quickly gain momentum. Some batches will seem like only a few crack, while others will seem like every bean cracks twice, all at once. But after a few moments, the cracking will slow to a stop. At this point, if you want a light roast, stop roasting.
If you want a medium roast, keep going until you begin to hear another cracking noise, creatively dubbed "second crack". This one sounds like more of a snap, somewhere between snapping a pencil in half and tapping fingernails on a metal desk. This crack is due to the beans cellular structure cracking apart. When you first hear a second crack, you can pull the roast for a medium/dark medium roast. Or you can keep going. At this point you can bring it into a rolling (continuous) second crack, which gets you into the range of a dark roast. The outsides of the beans get oily at this point, and as you keep going you can go past dark to extra dark roast, then Vienna roast, then French roast, then pure charcoal, and finally on to a Starbucks roast. Eventually they can literally just catch on fire.
When you have reached the level you want, turn off the heat source, empty the bowl into a cooling device, and cool away. The next few steps will explain what sort of gear to use.
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