# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Gardening >  Does anyone here roast there own coffee?

## BraggSurvivor

It's the "little things" in life that ..........................


Friend of mine has one of the original prototype of this machine: 
http://www.diedrichroasters.com/sample.html 

I have roasted with it several times. Turns out a great product. 

Being in control of the roasting can bring virtually any green product to your standard. 

I personally like a very dark roast. 

Favorites in order: 
100% Kona 
Blue Mountain 
Ethiopian Harrar 

I have cupped the most rare coffee procuct which is Kopi Luac (Cat-Butt Coffee) and can tell you the experience is overrated. At a price of a several hundred a pound it should come with the cat. 

There are many ways to roast- a easy way to get them and info is at: www.sweetmarias.com

----------


## Rick

See? I knew there was something seriously wrong with you. I mean, who drinks poop? Call it any fancy name you want....in the end...poop is poop. (God, I do love a world full of puns!)

My store bought prepackaged in the generic coffee maker coffee is just fine. If it has caffeine, I'm good to go, good to go, good to go, good to go........

----------


## BraggSurvivor

> See? I knew there was something seriously wrong with you. I mean, who drinks poop? Call it any fancy name you want....in the end...poop is poop. (God, I do love a world full of puns!)
> 
> My store bought prepackaged in the generic coffee maker coffee is just fine. If it has caffeine, I'm good to go, good to go, good to go, good to go........


It's not just any poop Rick, it's special poop.   :Big Grin: 

The best coffee is elephant poop coffee. 

The elephants pick the beans and poop them out. 

This is not bullpoop. 

The growers pick through the poop and you have the best but 

most expensive coffee. You could save by having a ton of poop 

mailed to your home and pick the beans yourself;then spread 

poop on you vegetable garden. 

Being frugal is everything.  :Big Grin:

----------


## crashdive123

That's just wrong.

----------


## Rick

Okay, I'm back from the bathroom and my stomach has settled down a bit......thanks for that invigorating load of crap. (walks off with crash whispering) the boy ain't right.....

----------


## crashdive123

Since I've retired from the Navy I've cut back on my coffee.  I'm down to about 20 cups a day.  I've had some great coffee and some pretty awful stuff......but poop beans......that's almost as bad as badmouthing bacon.

----------


## canid

yeah, i'm not big on 'used' food or beverage products for the most part.

i'd love to take on roasting, though i'm not sure at the moment where i'd even get green coffee [except for the obvious answer of _online_].

----------


## BraggSurvivor

Coffee roasters have done a good job brainwashing people out of roasting their own. It is in fact easy to do 

For me, nothing works quite as well as a hot air pop-corn popper with a plastic bowl to catch the chaff. If you plan to go past city roast, go outside, or at least take the battery out of your smoke detector. 

When you can find it, Ethiopian Limu light to medium roasted and blended 50-50 with any Timor coffee city roasted is an amazingly good blend. 

There are sample quantities of beans available on the web, so no large outlay of money is required to get started. Dunn Bros. stores sell green coffee, as they should: It weighs more per bean and they save the cost of roasting. 

Green beans store very well; coffee only deteriorates rapidly after it has been roasted.

----------


## Rick

Ah, the days of the great Atlantic & Pacific (A&P) when the grinder sat right there in the store. What a great isle to walk down as a kid. All the coffee aroma.......where was I? Oh, yea. Links: 

http://www.sweetmarias.com/instructions.html

----------


## crashdive123

Navy Commissary still has em, along with a few local supermarkets.  My favorite aisles. :Big Grin:  :Smile:

----------


## Rick

For a wild treat roasting your own coffee, you can try: 

Cleavers or Goosegrass (Galium aparine) Slow roast the fruits until dark brown. Grind and prepare like coffee.  

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) Roast the roots until brown and brittle. Grind and prepare like coffee. 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground root per cup of water. 

Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) The roasted seeds can be used to make coffee (the seed PODS are slightly poisonous). 

Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) Bake the roots in a slow oven until brown and brittle, Grind and perk like coffee. 

Yellow Goat's Beard (Tragopogon pratensis) Roast the roots and grind to use like coffee. 

Common Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) The roasted shells of the seeds can be used for coffee. 

Feverwort, Tinker's-Weed (Triosteum perfoliatum) Dry, roast, and grind the ripe berries. Add 1-2 teaspoons of the ground berries for every cup of COLD water and heat. When the mixture comes to a boil, remove it from the heat and allow it to steep for a few minutes before drinking. 

Kentucky Coffee-Tree (Gymnocladus dioica) The seeds can be roasted and ground into a caffeine-free coffee substiture. WARNING:!!!!!!!! Use only the roasted seeds; the fresh seeds and surrounding pulp are poisonous. Do not mistake the pods for the much longer ones of Honey Locust.

American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) The roasted kernals can be used as a coffee substitute.

----------


## danmc

> For a wild treat roasting your own coffee, you can try:


any comments on flavor of these?  I've tried dandelion as a hot drink, didn't much care for it.  Beech nuts are on my list to try if I can ever remember to get to the beech trees before the squirrels.

I'll add persimmon seeds to this list.  I find those quite tasty.  I roasted them for several hours in the oven and then ground them up with a coffee grinder.  For my tastes, about a teaspoon per cup of boiling water is about right.  This is one I'd seek out to drink at home.

-Dan

----------


## Rick

I've done chicory, dandelion and sunflower. Not much on the sunflower. The dandelion was okay and the chicory was more toward the good category. None of it is coffee to my taste. I saw your roasted persimmon in another thread and that's on my list of things to do. I'd never heard of that before and we have persimmon everywhere.

----------


## catfish10101

1. I love a good medium roast coffee. My favorite coffee is Community Meduim roast.
2. I could not survive without my caffine, so I must have my coffee.
3. I hate cats. ALL OF THEM!!!
4. I would like to know who was the first person to let a cat eat their coffee beans and went looking through the scat for them when the cat "finished with them"?
5. I would also like to know WHAT THE ---- THAT PERSON WAS THINKING WHEN HE (OR SHE) DECIDED TO MAKE AND DRINK THAT FIRST CUP OF CAT DUNG JUICE!!
6. As much as I like coffee, I would NEVER (AND I MEAN *NEVER* )THINK TO TRY THAT!!! I would do without first!!!
7. THIS "CAFFINE FREE COFFEE" STUFF.......IS NOT COFFEE!!!! THAT'S LIKE DRINKING "NON-ALCAHOLIC BEER......IT AINT BEER!!!! IT JUST AINT RIGHT!!!

..........and yet we wonder why this world is going down the toilet!!!

----------


## crashdive123

Just read this thread.....time for a CAT NAP.

----------


## trax

Further to what catfish was saying:

If a person has a decaf with sugar-free sweetener and non-dairy "whitener" just what in the **** is that person drinking?

----------


## catfish10101

> Further to what catfish was saying:
> 
> If a person has a decaf with sugar-free sweetener and non-dairy "whitener" just what in the **** is that person drinking?


.......or smoking?  LMAO!!!

----------


## Pal334

A good hearty cup of coffee is what makes life worthwhile. That "foo foo" cat poopy coffee is for the morons with too much money and not enough brains. Never roasted coffee, but I think I will put it on a list of things to try.

----------


## crashdive123

Sarge - Move to Survival Food

----------


## skunkkiller

acorns make good coffee you have to laeve it first .

----------


## stalkerr

Price is so high.  I need to buy a low cost product. I can buy a new Coffee Roaster Machine from Kafgar. *****Oooops! Spam. Oh, no! *****

----------


## Bruce35

Sounds great! But I think it isn't worth it! Too expensive...

----------


## Rick

Do you mail order Dean's Beans to Algeria 'cause I checked the map and they don't list a location anywhere in Africa.

----------


## DogMan635

Now I have never roasted the coffee bean, but rather buy the roasted bean to make all kinds. French Pressed, Cowboy coffee is the go-to when camping. But I have done both. First here are my steps for Franch Pressed coffee. First, you need a special coffee maker for the french press. As you bring the water to a bowel about 195-degrees. While waiting grain the beans into coffee grounds measure and drop into a pot of hot water for 3-mins and then press to the bottom of the pot and serve.
Cowboy coffee is boiling water and the coffee ground dropped in after water comes to a bowl. I mix the grounds in for about 3-minutes as well. When ready I remove from the fire and dump in about a half cup of ice-cold water as this will make the coffee grounds fall to the bottom of the pot and serve. I normally make about 4 or 5, 12oz cups and by the end of the day have put them all away if not shared with friends. YES, I'll drink cold as well. I love my Coffee. Not so sure about this one, would need more information and the link seemed to be broken for me when I tried. Thanks for sharing coffee is good stuff when made right

As for drinking poop, has anyone seen the movies on Bill Gates, on Netflix, called "INSIDE BILL'S BRAIN". His team made a totally self- sufficient toilet, all safe powered totally and makes clean drinking water form it as well as completely destroying for safe removal., yep you guessed it "POOP"  All in all I found it kind of cool, them doing that. But don't take this to mean I'm a total fan of Mr. Gates. But I respect his work in helping others.

----------


## 1983

When I was out in the Dominican Republic me and the wife went on a "Safari" (would highly suggest) and they showed us their coffee and coco trees and how life was on the Island and a few things really stuck with me.

The way this one family roasted their coffee they had an open fire pit and what looked to be an old propane canister with a rod through the center and a hatch built into the side to remover the roasted coffee all set up like a low spit.

Had a taste test of it and they mix theirs with cinnamon... Some of the best coffee I've ever tasted.

----------


## DCorlando

Just wanted to mention I have had very good results using very basic equipment. A wood fire, cast iron skillet, stainless spatula and a second cold iron griddle to cool the hot beans when ready. Get the beans real hot and keep them moving during the full roasting with the spatula and then the instant they are at the darkness you like dump the hot beans on the cold iron and keep moving for a bit to knock the heat out. Let fully cool and grind then enjoy. That's it.

----------


## Kay

I like roasting coffee by myself. It has better taste for me really. I've started doing it because I bought unroasted coffee for mistake. Now it's just a habit I think, and you know I am sure that no one will do it better than I do.

----------


## Alan R McDaniel Jr

I drink coffee.  One pot in the morning and that's it.  I know my limitations...

While there are some coffees that I do not like, there are none that I will not drink if an alternative is unavailable.  Mostly I drink Folgers or Community in one or another of their incarnations.  

But, for me, taste is not a primary concern.  I drink coffee primarily for medicinal purposes.  Without it my temperament is decidedly foul.  I usually ready the pot the night before so that a push of a button in the morning is all that is necessary to start the process of joining the human race.  

Roasting the coffee beans myself eats up precious minutes of life (mine and other peoples as well), especially when I can get it already roasted.  

Alan

----------


## Rick

There are things essential to survive and there are things extraneous. Coffee IS essential. Grinding it is extraneous. I would use stronger words for grinding but I'm nice. 

Alan - Do you find walking around with a pot of coffee more convenient than several cups? I may have to try that. I do like that idea.

----------


## Alan R McDaniel Jr

I have a 32 oz Yeti. It can be refilled one and a half times.  That is inconvenient, but using the pot will allow the coffee to cool too quickly AND there is always the chance of breakage.  There is only one thing worse than not having sufficient coffee in the morning and that is some terrible tragedy occurring with the means of making it.  

I have never had to chew coffee to receive its medicinal effects but breaking the pot might dictate that eventuality.

#1 wife drinks 1/2 a cup which may account for her general mood at times (like in the morning or at mid morning or at noon......).  1/2 cup is simply not enough to get to Happy, Happy, Happy!

Alan

----------


## Rick

The extreme shaking might account for the occasional loss of parts from my work bench but it does aid in the use of the flashlight in finding said pieces.

----------


## crashdive123

Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum.

----------


## Kay

I once tried to roast coffee on my own, it didn't work out very well and it was not so fragile, did not give in to grinding so well. Therefore, I decided not to experiment anymore and buy only roasted coffee beans.

----------


## furrfox

I roast SPAM from time to time when I have free time. I like the process and smell. Usually, I do a light roast, so beans retain most of the caffeine.

----------


## Michael aka Mac

Unless you are going to NYC, around here there was only one place that sold Kopi Luac nearby and they closed down just prior to the pandemic.   Personally I never tried that  bean,   and I declined the offer to try it from that place.  Yea  the stomach acids  alter the bitterness of the bean  prior to that species of animal excreting it, but part of the experience of drinking coffee is in the mind, and my mind cant stop thinking that this bean  came out of some animals A$$.

I only drink decaf now,  and no  not by choice,  but I have tried a few different coffee brands and found pros and cons to all of them so I ended up making coffee by adding 2 scoops of the following each day:

All decaf 2 scoops of the following:

Mountain House
Folgers
Chuck full of nuts
Café du Monde

It goes through a $100 stainless steel programmable auto drip coffee maker.

For espressos  I just use the Café du Monde and a stove top espresso percolator
Cappuccino is a combo of Folgers & Café Du Monde

If i want a specialty cup of coffee  I drive down to Food Bazaars  where they have several several rows of huge buckets of coffee beans  from around the world to select from

----------

