A home roaster refers to a person who will go to the lengths of roasting his or her own green coffee at home, for economics or for enjoyment of the beverage known as coffee.
They forgo the average supermarket blends of wholebean and ground coffee as they stale quickly - 5 to 7 days for whole bean and a matter of hours of pre-ground - as most of the commercial coffee available are lower quality blends and have staled long ago from transit and sitting on a shelf. Starbucks, and other roasters of supposed connoisseur coffee have a six month sell-by date on their products, a far fetch from the 5 to 7 days of the elitist home roaster!
The pioneers of this branch of gastronomy have devised many new methods of roasting at home cheaply, as well as ones easily available. The notable ones are using popcorn poppers (both electric and manual stovetop), heat/hot air guns (for stripping paint), and barbeque roasters with home made steel drums. Ones available in any household include the oven (if it is vented to outside) and the trusty saucepan or wok.
There are a variety of consumer appliances made specifically for roasting such as the Hearthware I-Roast, Swissmar Alpenrost, Zach & Dani's Home Roaster and many more, but their longevity and programmability are still major issues, not to mention their price point and capacity when compared to homemade solutions.
When compared to buying generic roasted beans, home roasting allows a wealth of options on not only the roast level, but the type of bean, the origin and green (unroasted) coffee is far cheaper than roasted, and will keep fresh for a year or two. It allows the coffee lover to be part of the process and become more knowledgable as well as enjoy better, cheaper and fresher coffee! All it takes is about twenty minutes for a roast, and clean up of the roasting process.
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