Popcorn

Due to a complete misunderstanding involving a Tijuana Transgendered Hooker and a Mule, I have lying low at a friend’s house until things blow over and Univision finds some other story to follow. I had not planned far enough ahead to pack my Behmor Roaster, but thankfully my friend is a fellow coffee roasting enthusiast. Upon my arrival he presented me with a cooler full of beans that he never got around to roasting along with an old Whirly Pop Stovetop popcorn machine.

“Here, this shit will keep you out of trouble,” He said, “And maybe help payoff the bribe money I had to give to those crooked Tijuana Cops.”

I tried to tell that I had been set up that the whole thing had been the mule’s idea, but he did not really want to hear it. He did not care. All he knew was that I owed him big time and I was going to have to work it off by roasting up an assload of coffee beans with a Whirly Pop.

Talk about low tech

.

This method of roasting beans is as primitive as you can get. No fancy ass roasting cycles, no automatic cool downs, no chaff collectors, no catalytic converters. No nothing. Just something to cook the beans in along with a little crank you need to constantly turn in order to keep the roast even. The only luxury that was afforded was a candy thermometer that my friend had managed to rig to it using a drill and a few well placed pieces of tinfoil.

“So get to roasting!” He demanded.

After drinking some of the swill that passed for coffee around the area, I understood my friend’s desperate circumstances. Even though the stash was almost two years old, it was still going to taste a lot fresher than the crap that was passing for coffees from the local Beanery. My own Fresh Roast  stash had run out too, so I was starting to get the itch.

Also, I was kind of curious what sort of roasts this rather primitive contraption was capable of putting out.

So I spent some time figuring out the exhaust, than began picking out the beans. I decided on a mix of Rwandan and Yemen beans for a Moka-Java like blend to start off with.  There was about 4oz left of each bean, so the expected yield was around 8 oz, enough to keep me in my friend rolling in beans for a day or two. I let the Whirly Pop warm up for a few minutes and then dumped the beans in and began to crank. I kept the flame at medium and began to crank. 24 minutes and a sore wrist later the roast was done. One of the beans took longer to crack than the other so the roast was uneven, but it was still okay.

Shit, it was still better than anything found on the outside.