Roasting Coffee

A couple of years ago while we were with the “Boomers” in Quartzsite, Az, one of the guys had a coffee roaster on board his motor home and he fresh roasted some coffee and shared it with us.  The coffee was really good and the idea was planted that maybe we should try roasting coffee at home. I looked into coffee roasters and found that they were very expensive and research reveled that the smaller,cheaoer ones didn’t do an acceptable job and didn’t hold up very well.  I put the idea on the back burner and there it sat until this summer. 
In September we took a trip to the Olympic Peninsula. We stopped for a cup of coffee one afternoon in Port Angeles, Wa, at a shop with a sign that said, “Best Coffee In the Northwest”.  Talking with the owner, we discovered that she roasted her own coffee using a large drum rotating over a gas grill.  Further discussion revealed that in her opinion the best coffee to roast is Arabica and that earlier that week a man had been in her shop telling her about roasting coffee using an old bread machine and a heat gun.  Now, that sounded like the thing I could handle, so I got on line to do some research and sure enough there were several videos on U-tube that showed how to do it.
My sister-in-law in Baker City, Oregon, found me an old bread machine for $1 in a thrift shop.  I flew over to Baker City (which is another whole story) and picked up the machine.  After modifying the top, I inserted the nozzle of the heat gun and turned it on to test the temperatures.  In about 2 minutes, the case of the heat gun started melting and smoke stated rising from the bread machine.  I quickly shut everything down and assessed the damage.  The heat gun still worked, but the auger in the bread machine had melted and no longer would turn.  Not a good start!
I pried the auger off and removed it’s drive shaft.  Then I fashioned a new auger out of a piece of old oak flooring and reassembled the machine.  I attached the heat gun to an old gooseneck lamp and adjusted the angle so it pointed down into the machine.  This time I left the cover off so some of the heat could escape.Another test revealed that the temperatures were good so, I poured in about a half a pound of green beans and started it up.  The end result was a total success.  My green beans reach a final temperature of 480 to 490 degrees and the final product comes out just the way we like it.