Coffee: To Roast... or Pop?

There's nothing like a good cup of coffee. Judging from today's culture I'm not the only one who feels this way. Honestly, I'd say that just about one out of five people out and about are either drinking coffee, on their way to get a cup or are just thinking about the next one. I certainly fall into one of those categories. A coffee culture has taken hold of the country and for me I think I know how it's taken hold.

I can think back to when I was very young and my great-grandmother lived the next floor down from us. Among being spoiled with all the sweets and loving gifts a grandmother will always try to sneak past your mother, mine also snuck a little coffee past her as well. I was always interested in grandmas enthusiasm for opening a new can of coffee. As soon as the lid would come off she would tell me to take a sniff and then she would explain what was good about it. How it smelled so good and that was just the way coffee should be before you brewed it. Then I was fascinated by the percolator. I remember how she would put the grounds in the top cup, fill the bottom with water and then set it on the stove. As soon as it boiled, I would watch the coffee bubble up through the glass handle on the lid, and when it no longer appeared it was done. My grandmother liked her coffee light and sweet. When I say light, I mean she put heavy cream in her coffee! Then she would make it sweet, but not too sweet like today's D&D six-count-sugar coffees, but just enough for the perfect bitter, sweet and creamy balance. When I first tried that coffee I was hooked! It was so much better than the Swiss Miss cocoa I was used to drinking. Grandma wouldn't let me have a full cup of coffee right from the start, she would just give me sips until I was old enough, maybe around 10 or 11 years old. (Back in the early 80's that was old enough I guess.) That was enough for me for coffee to set it's teeth in good and deep. As I got older, coffee with grandma became something very cherished and something I reflected on as good moments with her. Yeah coffee, just like other somewhat more meaningful relics in life, can have great meaning if attached to love and family. As the years went on and grandma got older, her techniques for making coffee changed from percolator to instant and dairy went from heavy cream to half and half. No matter how she made her coffee towards the end it was always perfect to me.

I tell this story to bring into light the associations that I have with coffee and how they are what really make it so much more enjoyable. I think most people are like that as well. Whether their associations are just being social or as important as setting the pace for their day. Their kinship with coffee is always much more than a mere drink. It's more like a relationship that is one-sided and not only reliable but dependable. Yes coffee drinkers are fanatics, to some extent to the coffee but also, I think, to the associations and feeling that it conjures up. Over and over it's an enjoyable experience.

Recently, I thought I was pretty smart having an idea on how I could roast my own coffee at home. Coffee is about 3 times cheaper if bought as whole green coffee beans. I realized that coffee roasters toss coffee around while it roasts like my air-pop popcorn maker does with popcorn. So I thought I'd give it a try. I checked my theory on the Internet and sure enough tons of people do it and, not to mention, everyone is selling popcorn machines on eBay as "Popcorn Popper/Coffee Roaster". So, feeling not as smart as before, I continued with the project. I shopped around at all the retail stores and then realized I often see air-pop popcorn machines at the Goodwill store for about $3-$4. I picked one up that was a Presto Poplite (1440 watts) and brought it home to start roasting. I found a local coffee company that sells green beans in 5 pound bags and picked up a blend. The cheaper, the better for starting projects like this. I followed the instructions of the popcorn machine and filled it with just a half a cup of beans. I plugged it in and watched what happened. The machine was a little sluggish blowing the beans around but a few shakes helped move things along. As it kept going the skins of the beans began to blow off so I put a bowl underneath to catch it.(see picture) The beans start popping and little divots fly off of the beans as they get closer to being done. (see picture on right on the paper towel) I simply shut the machine off when I thought it was dark enough for my taste. That was it! It was very easy. I'm sure there are a whole slew of techniques to roasting coffee that are much more accurate and with better tasting results but for the amount of investment I put into it what could I expect. I got a perfectly good coffee with my technique and I dare any standard coffee drinker to tell me it's not as good as any big company's. I like the fact that I could roast as much coffee as I need for the week. That is the best quality coffee you can get, one that is freshly roasted and ground just before being brewed. Maybe one day I can tinker around and make something a little more high-tech but for now I like the ingenuity of using something meant for one purpose, yet used for another. I would encourage anyone out there who is into being self-sufficient and wants to save a little money to give this a try. It's amazing how much money you could spend on coffee at Starbucks if you buy it every day. So do yourself a favor and get the only two things you need: an air-pop popcorn machine and some green coffee beans and get roasting... or do I mean popping.

Just for some additional information, shop on eBay for green coffee beans. I bought a 3 pound bag of green beans for $6.99 plus shipping. Shipping costs suck but it was still cheaper than buying it from my local coffee company.

Cold Morning with Fruit and Jars

It's about 15-20F outside with a wind chill of below zero. That's just a little to cold to take the dog for a long walk. Sorry Annie! What I need is some more coffee and some stuff simmering on the stove. When I know I have a good excuse to stay inside I am gonna cook, pickle, can, dry or vacuum pack anything I can. It's just in my nature! Today I stared at one of those wooden boxes of clementines on the counter and said "what am I gonna do with these things?". I know my wife will eventually eat them all but who knows when that would happen and I wanted to cook something. I had 4 more jars on the porch that needed to be filled with something and those clementines were in my crosshairs. I was thinking of making a marmelade. After all, people all over the world are harvesting citrus this time of year and making marmelade so I thought that was as good enough reason as any. Sorry honey we can buy more! By the way, apologies about the iPhone quality it's the only camera I own for silly step-by-step pictures. I started first by getting the pot of water to sterelize the jar(s). I have an electric stove that takes a wile to heat water to a boil. Then I started slicing the clementines. I wasn't too careful about it because I know they're gonna cook for a long time and get very soft and break up easily. After they were all sliced I put them in a pot with cold water and set them on the stove to bring to a boil. Then did that two more times. I had my sugar weighed out previously, after weighing the fruit, then added that to the pot with the fruit and a little more water to cover. After bringing it to a simmer I looked for any scum or forth to come to the surface and removed it. Then just simmered it to the right consistency. The short explanation is as follows (the most basic way of expressing it):

• First weight the fruit so you know how much sugar to use.











• Then slice the fruit. Use the pulp and skins.






• Blanch them in cold water three(3) times, starting with cold each time you change it.
  
  

• After the third blanch, add an equal amount of sugar, by weight, to the fruit and enough water to just cover.




• Simmer, skimming as froth comes to the surface, until it is of marmalade consitency.

I always use the plate method to test if is the right consistency. [Just get a plate in the fridge and when you think your marmelade is close then drop a little on the cold plate. Tilt the plate to the side and see if the marmelade sets. Also you'll be looking for the surface to make a "wrinkle" when it flows. After it's the correct consistency hot pack into jars and process.]

I also had a couple of fruit preserves in the fridge that I thought I'd have eaten by now. One was a raspberry jam and the other was from a foraged berry I picked in November called Autumn Olives. So I threw them in the microwave to get them to hot pack temperature and put
them into sterilized jars. I had enough of each to fill 1 jar each plus a little extra so I combined the teo jams together to make another full jar and processed them all. Very cool! These will probably trun into gifts for when I visit someones house or for our new neighbors but I had fun, kept busy, practiced my canning and made some room inthe refridgerator. That sounds like a pretty good way to spend a cold January morning to me.