Reddit reviews Home Coffee Roasting, Revised, Updated Edition: Romance and Revival

This is a fantastic book on home roasting. It is well-written, interesting, and upped my own coffee-roasting ten-fold.

My roasting partner /u/chaswerner gave me a birthday gift of homeroasted coffee which was so delicious, it spurred me to take up homeroasting after a 10 year hiatus from coffee drinking (due to poor quality). Charlie started homeroasting in 2001 with the [Kenneth Davids home coffee roasting book] (http://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Roasting-Revised-Updated-Edition/dp/0312312199). I had Charlie's knowledge, experience, and roastlogs at my disposal when I started, and I used a lot of internet sources (like Sweet Maria's, homeroasters.org and greencoffee.coop) at first, before quickly developing my own techniques. We roasted and cupped together every weekend for a long time before deciding to start [S&W Craft Roasting] (http://www.swroasting.com). After acquiring our 12kg Sasa Samiac and discovering that we had inadvertently inherited an Agtron SRS-II controller, we attended the Carl Staub school of coffee at Agtron in Reno and learned a ton! We have developed our own amalgamated roasting style influenced by Carl's scientific research, our empirical experience, and many other sources of commercial roasting knowledge. Roasting is by no means a straightforward science! It most often proves counterintuitive.

The classic work is Home Coffee Roasting, Revised, Updated Edition: Romance and Revival
by Kenneth Davids.

Does your stove vent actually go outside, or does it recirculate air inside your townhouse? I too live in a townhouse and mine does not vent outside. I ask this because unless it goes outside, the smoke created from a Whirley Pop (or similar device) is akin to pissing on a forest fire when it comes to a non-outdoor vent. It can't keep up and your whole place will get smokey.

Like others have said, I don't think it's a bad smell but it's not for everyone. I have several windows and a sliding glass door in my kitchen--put all of them to good use when I did stovetop.

I also suggest buying (or renting from your local library) this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312312199/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That's how I learned way back when.

Good luck! I did stovetop for well over a year before getting a Behmor. It's a great way to get started.

One of my favorites:

http://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Roasting-Revised-Updated-Edition/dp/0312312199

I got it to get an overview about roasting, but the book does a great job talking about coffee in general.

Home Coffee Roasting, Revised, Updated Edition: Romance and Revival https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312312199/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QYjJDb0SZD2H3

Goes into the chemistry of roasting, history, and generally everything about coffee roasting. I’m using it myself and am learning a lot.

Happy reading!!

this guide is probably the best investment you could make. I still find myself referencing it.

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Coffee-Roasting-Revised-Updated/dp/0312312199/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372598138&sr=1-1&keywords=home+roasting+coffee