Fresh Brewed

After a whole week of drilling I was finally able to roast some coffee today.  Say what?  Drilling?  Yes I know.  Sounds weird, right?  Well let me show you what I was working so hard on.

That's right.  693.

Chris and I decided for some weird reason (*cough* Emily *cough*) that we wanted to roast our own coffee beans.  We had received some home roasted beans for Christmas from my sister and they were delicious, so why not learn to do it ourselves?  Well once we bought them I realized that we really didn't have any of the required equipment to roast them properly.  I decided that I didn't want to spend any money on purchasing a popcorn popper, so oven roasting it was.  Out came the oldest pan in the drawer and my Chris' power drill.

I got through about two when I realized what a bad idea it was.  For those of you who know me though, there was no quitting.  Even when I'd only done about 30 before calling it quits for the day and Chris came home and shook his head at me.  By golly, I got up the next morning and did 60!  Then 90 the next day....then...well, you get it.

Today, my friends, today was the day.  I drilled that final hole and cranked that oven up to 500 degrees, then roasted those babies until they cracked and then cracked once more.  I hovered about with a sick feeling in my stomach watching the smoke billow out of the oven.  I thought for sure I had just drilled 693 holes over the past week all to get some burnt coffee beans.  I finally couldn't take it anymore and had to open it to make sure they weren't on fire.  The smoke detector went into a tizzy and I had to run around opening windows and waving kitchen rags.

It was all worth it though, when I removed those beans from the oven, they were a smooth, oily, Pacific Northwest, medium bold brown.

Emily, if you're reading, I hope you are proud.

I even re-used the glass jar you gave us with the Christmas batch.

Cross your fingers they actually taste as good as they look tomorrow morning.