Reddit reviews Presto 04821 Orville Redenbacher's Hot Air Popper

What are you using to roast them?

I ask because I've been roasting beans with popcorn poppers for years. I get a very even roast, and I kinda spoil visitors.

The popcorn one can be done slightly better if you get a popcorn maker. That way you don't have to buy paper bags or anything, you just put the bowl under the machine and the popcorn flies out when finished.

Roasting your own coffee can give you better coffee for less money, and also providing a fresher cup and let you tune the roast to your preference.

It only takes about ten minutes once or twice a week to roast, and it means you never have to suffer stale coffee. As an added bonus, green beans are usually about half the price of roasted.

Sourcing Beans

Start with a Sweet Maria's sampler pack. It works out to $5/lb before shipping, and if you're in the Bay Area, you can swing by and pick up the beans when you're in the neighborhood. I like the sampler, and usually buy one or two a year for home consumption though that varies depending on whether I'm living near a good café or working from home.

There are probably other sources for green beans, but basically the consensus among people I've talked to is that for home roasters, you can't beat Sweet Maria's for either quality or price.

Storing Green Beans

Keep the beans somewhere out of direct sunlight and away from heat and they'll be fine in a cupboard or drawer somewhere for at least a year. Unlike roasted coffee, they don't need any special treatment. No airtight containers, freezing, or refrigeration, just don't keep 'em above the stove or anything like that.

The Roaster

Go get yourself one of those air popcorn poppers from the 80s. You know the kind. You can find them at garage sales for $2 sometimes. You probably already have one in your cupboard way at the back behind the food processor or in that box of kitchen stuff you never unpacked. Go find it.

Roasting the Beans

Now that you've got the popper, fill the scoop with the green beans you've got as if they were popcorn, and dump them into the main chamber. Place the popcorn popper on your counter so that it points into the sink, and plug it in. You can point it outside on a window sill instead, but it's going to produce a bit of chaff as it works and if you don't collect it somewhere sensible you'll be finding it stuck to your socks for weeks.

This is a good time to go disable your smoke detector. Don't worry, the beans aren't going to fly out. They'll stay in the roasting chamber throughout the whole process.

As the beans roast, they'll yellow, then brown, and then begin suddenly to snap, crackle, and pop. This is known as "first crack". I like to stop the beans at, or around this point for my usual roast. After a little while, this will subside, and then a sweet smelling smoke will begin to be emitted from the beans. After a short period, the crackling will return, for "second crack".

I strongly recommend you do not allow your beans to progress far into, or beyond second crack. If you do, you will end up with what is colloquially known as an "espresso roast", a "Starbucks roast", or simply "charcoal." The chief sign of this (other than a kitchen full of smoke) will be that your beans will be a deep brown and will either already be or soon become oily on their surface.

Some people prefer this taste. To them I say: drink on! Whatever you like is correct!

When the beans have reached the desired level of roast (really, just before) unplug the popper, and dump the beans into a metal colander, onto a cookie tray, or somewhere else you can spread them out to cool. I would put them in a big metal mixing bowl and toss them until they were only warm to the touch.

Enjoying your Coffee

It is generally accepted that the coffee should be allowed to rest for four to twenty-four hours before consumption. To this I say, "pish tosh." The rest, it is true, allows the coffee to out-gas and reduces the amount of foaming that occurs that when the ground coffee comes in contact with water. That said, a little bit of stirring dissipates any foam and hey, I want coffee now, not tomorrow.

That's it! If you follow these easy instructions you will be your own coffee roaster. I tried it for the first time some years ago and never looked back. Many local roasteries are happy to sell you a few pounds of green and would love to talk to you about their roasting process, so if you've got an old popcorn popper lying around you can always try that.

From here, the possibilities are endless. Go forth, and enjoy all that the coffee roasting world has to offer.

You can buy standalone air poppers or use the microwave. The cheapest way is to just use a brown paper bag in the microwave, though I'm partial to my silicone microwave popper.

Last time I made popcorn it was in a hot air popper. That dish on top of the spout is where you put butter, and by the time the popcorn is ready so is the butter.