Roasting Coffee in an Electric Air Popcorn Popper is a Great Way To Start, and a Inexpensive Way to Continue Roasting at Home!
Features: We highly recommend this method because it’s easy and produces very even roasts from the City to the French stages. Used poppers can be found in many thrift stores. They roast quickly, but usually only 3-4 ounces at a time. Since it’s a fast and easy process, roasting two batches consecutively is not a big deal.
What You Might Need to Roast Coffee in Your Popper:
- -Hot air popper of the recommended type ideally.
- -big bowl or colander to catch the chaffChaff is paper-like skin that comes off the coffee in the roasting process. Chaff from roasting is part of the innermost skin (the silverskin) of the coffee fruit...
- -big spoon, long handle.
- -metal colander for cooling
- -oven mitt or heat glove
…and here’s another video showing the whole process:
Instructions for Air Popcorn Popper Coffee Roasting
- Location Matters: Set up the popper in a ventilated place near a kitchen exhaust fan or window, if possible. It’s nice to have strong overhead light so you can look down into the popper chamber to accurately judge the roast as it progresses. You can roast outside but be mindful of ambient temperatureThe temperature in a given room or space: This term is used to describe the overall temperature in a given environment, and is an important variable in coffee... – hot/cold weather can affect roast time. Roasting in extreme hot or cold impacts the roast.
- Batch Size … How much can I roast? Put the a similar amount of coffee in the popper that the manufacturer recommends for popcorn. For the Nostalgia, 3 oz. is the good, or 1/3 to 1/2 cup. There is a trick for figuring out the batch size: with the popper running, add green coffeeGreen coffee refers to the processed seed of the coffee tree fruit. Coffee is a flowering shrub that produces fruit. The seeds of the fruit are processed, roasted,... until the mass of beans just stops swirling. As the roast progresses and the beans lose mass, the beans will begin swirling. (Note that you can roast more in the Nostalgia but you should manually stir it for the first 2 minutes or so, with the lid off the top of course).
- Yellow-to-Brown Roast Phase: Put the plastic hood (including butter dish) in place, and a large bowl under the chute. We put our popper by the sink so it blows chaff right into the basin. Or run it outdoors, if the temperature is mild.
- First CrackFirst crack in one of two distinct heat-induced pyrolytic reactions in coffee. It is distinguished by a cracking or popping sound in the coffee, and occurs between 390...: With the machine running, watch for steam coming from the machine, and soon after the “first crack” of the beans at about 3-5 minutes. First crackAn audible popping sound heard during roasting. In coffee, one refers to "first crack" and "second crack," which come from two different classes of chemical reactions.: An audible... can sound like a real “pop” sound. Wait another minute, then start to monitor beans closely for desired roast color by lifting out butter dish and looking into popping chamber, or, better yet, by smelling the smoke and listening to the crackling.
- Each 10 Seconds Matters at the End of the Roast! Total time for a lighter roast should be around 4-6 minutes, full city roastA coffee that has been roasted to the brink of second crack.: A coffee that has been roasted to the brink of second crack. The internal bean temperature... around 5-6, and darker roasts closer to 6:30-7. Roasts develop quickly, so be vigilant! Never leave the popper while roasting! Believe it or not, in the final phase each 10 seconds of popper roasting will result in a different coffee flavorThe overall impression in the mouth, including the origin character as well as tastes that come from the roast.: This is the overall impression in the mouth, including... in brewing. When you stop the roast really matters.
- Second CrackAfter First Crack, a roast reaction around 440 to 450 degrees that is distinguished by a snapping sound. Second Crack is the second audible clue the roaster-operator receives...: If you want a darker roast, you might hear “second crack”. While first crack sounds like the pop of popcorn, second crack is a snap … ever hear how Rice Crispies cereal sounds when you pour link over it? Like that! If you hear second crack while roasting, you are already going to have a dark roast tasteThe set of flavors that result from the degree-of-roast.: Roast Taste is a term we started to distinguish it from "Origin Flavor". We use the "roast taste" term..., even if the coffee doesn’t look dark and oily. Advice: if you like that dark oily bean roast in the past, do NOT roast your coffee until it looks oily. If you do, it will taste way darker than you expect … it will taste like charcoal!
- Cooling Time: Unlike popcorn, coffee doesn’t toss itself out of your popper into a bowl! You want to pour the beans out of the popper when they are a tad lighter than the color you desire, since roasting continues until beans are cool.
- Cool it Quick: Agitate beans in a metal colander with a big spoon or toss between 2 colanders until they are warm to the touch. You may need oven mitts for this. You may want to walk out to a porch to aid cooling. I actually use a large cookie sheet and spread the coffee out. The surface area conducts the heat away from the coffee rapidly.
- Coffee StorageGreen coffee can be stored much longer than roasted coffee: Roasted coffee starts to lose its aromatics in 10 days after roasting. Green coffee can be stored months...: Coffee should be stored out of direct light (and not in a fridge or freezer) in an airtight glass jar, but with a fresh roast, wait 12 hours to seal the jar tightly; it needs to vent off C02. You can read more about storing your roasted coffee here.
- Rest your coffee: Warm, fresh roasted beans are wonderful, but the coffee won’t be at their peak to drink until 12-24 hours after roasting. If you store your roasted coffee as we recommend, it should be fresh for one week. When you open that jar in the morning, you will know what fresh coffee truly is!
Trouble Shooting Air Popcorn Popper Coffee RoastingThe application of heat to green coffee seeds (beans) to create palatable material for brewing a great cup!: Coffee roasting is a chemical process induced by heat, by...
Roasting in a popper is a DIY venture – so you will need to assess your own situation and make accommodations accordingly. Some of the most common issues:
How do I slow down my air popper roast? It’s too fast
Each popper can run differently and some can run very hot – especially at first. For a simple fix, use an extension cord between the popper and the wall outlet. This will reduce the voltage slightly and make the popper run slower. Consider roasting a larger batch size and manually stirring the coffee for the first 2 minutes to prevent scorchingPatches of discolored burn marks on the coffee bean, due to a high-heat roast environment or other roast error.: Scorching refers to a roast error that can be.... Also, it’s on early in the roast to turn off the popper for 20 seconds or so while manually stirring the coffee. I often do this when the coffee is still green, after about 1 minute of the popper being on, and again when I see the first sign of yellow. If you are stirring while doing this it does not harm the roast quality.
My air popcorn popper roasts too slow, how do I speed up the roast?
You can have the opposite problem – the popper is too cool. Try the reverse of the suggestion above: if you are using an extension cord, try plugging into the outlet directly. Or try a different outlet. Sometimes running a major appliance – like an air conditioner or refrigerator – on the same circuit will also limit the voltage. Finally, ambient air temperature has a major impact on popper performance so, if you are roasting outdoors, try to move inside or at least to a sheltered area. Also, it might be counterintuitive, but a larger batch size of beans can trap more heat and roast better than a small batch, that allows a lot of the hot air to blow by. Try a larger batch, but stir it initially to ensure even roasting.
My popcorn popper roast stalls, and doesn’t get hot enough to roast coffee … what can I do?
Some poppers are underpowered – they have do not have sufficient wattage. If you are using an old/thrift store model, consider upgrading to a new unit. Also, you can cover the exit air flow, or limit it, to try to get the roast chamber temperature to rise.
Another issue is ambient temperature. If you are roasting out in the cold you might need to move it to a warmer location.
But you also might have a problem with the internal temperature cutoff, a safety switch usually mounted to the side of the roast chamber. If this is the case, you can often hear your roaster fan speed increase and decrease in long cycles, as your roast gets dark up to a point and then just swirls around without getting darker. The trick here is a pretty simple surgery: open the popper, find the temperature cutoff, take the 2 wires going into it, and connect them to each other, effectively bypassing the high temperature limit. Of course, this has some dangers, and you must watch your roaster like a hawk to make sure it doesn’t have thermal melt down! But “no walking away” and “no multi-tasking” are rules for modified and unmodified home roasting anyway!
My air popper gets hot but the coffee doesn’t roast, so what can I do?
This is a similar issue to the previous … but also consider this: Batch size makes a big difference: in a hot air popper, you need enough beans to block the hot air. If you have too small a batch, the hot air blows right past them and the beans will never roast. See the trick in the video above where, with the popper on, you add beans until they just stop swirling.
Modifications and Refinements to Roast Coffee Better in A Popcorn Popper
We have a series of tips about improving your air popper roasting experience and getting better control of the roast. Rabbit Hole Alert: People start out with adding a thermometer and next thing you know you’re buying an DC transformer or an Arduino controller and running your $5 air popper from the Goodwill off your $1500 laptop. Well, good on you!
You can read our library here because it’s free and there is tons of information. Or buy a copy of Home Coffee Roasting by Ken Davids, which is a bit of a vintage book on roasting at this point
Adding a thermometer to a Air Popcorn Popper can be easy and give you some benchmarks for better repeatability. Here’s a more recent article on temperature monitoring: https://library.sweetmarias.com/adding-a-thermometer-to-a-coffee-roaster-or-air-popper/
Check out our Video About Reading Your Air Roasts!
Using a timer when roasting – a vintage SM article on air roasting
Electric Air Popcorn Poppers for Coffee Roasting – models that are known to work well!
We like the Nostalgia – here is a list of other models that customers have said work well, or ones we personally have used that have the recommended design:
- West Bend Air Crazy (only the model with flat bottom and side vents)
- West Bend “The Poppery” AKA Poppery 1, 1500 Watts. The Best!
- West Bend Poppery II (1200 watt model) – a preferred model
- Popcorn Pumper, Especially the Oldest Model
- Kitchen Gourmet (from Walgreens)
- Toastmaster 6203 West Bend Air Crazy
- Toastess TCP-388 (also TCP-1)
18 Responses
Hello, regarding roasting coffee in a hot air popcorn machine – can you still use the popcorn machine to make popcorn or will this alter the taste of popcorn based on the coffee roasting process
My opinion is that yes, you can use it for both. But after roasting coffee for a while there tends to be some discoloration and coffee roasting residue that is going to make you not want to use it for popcorn. If you stay on top of that, wipe out the roast chamber after every couple roasts, plus the top, I think it could work for both uses long term. If you clean it when the popper is still hot/warm it is a lot easier….
I would not do it. Coffee beans have a lot of oil that comes out depending on the roast level. That oil will impact the taste of the popcorn and the reverse is also true; while a smaller amount, the corn taste can intrude on the coffee. If you buy a used machine in a thrift store be sure to look closely at the hopper and the condition.
Hello. I was roasting in my Nostalgia today. I am getting back to home roasting after a hiatus of several years. So, this was only my 4th roasting session. I followed your instructions for installing a rigid thermocoupler to the Nostalgia and connected to a digital thermometer. I was in my garage where the ambient temperature was about 71 F.
I was roasting the Mexican Comunidad Coatepec. First crack was around 3:30 at about 414 F to 421 F across my three roastings of this coffee. Each time, while 1st crack was still “popping,” around 4:30 and 430 F, the temperature readout started dropping rapidly. I did not notice any change in the sound of the fan speed; but that does not mean it did not occur. I may not have noticed if the fan speed changed. The cracking then stopped, so I ended the roast and emptied the beans for cooling.
Do you have any theories about what happened regarding the temperature dropping?
Thank you. I love being a Sweet Maria’s customer again!
Hey Tom – hmmm, it could be that the nostalgia is hitting a point where the small overtemperature switch is kicking in. When that happens you might hear a very slight fan speed change (easy to miss) as the heat coil shuts off for a bit until the temperature drops down. Its a safety feature, but can interfere with roasting. The overtemp switch is mounted on the side of the roast chamber wall about half way up. It can be bypassed but requires opening up the nostalgia, and simply unplugging the two wires from the switch and connecting them, to bypass the over-temp cutoff function. It’s a bit like the Popper coffee roaster, which I have some documentation for the similar type of switch in this video.
Best way to store raw beans?
Basically, in an air tight bag or jar in a cool dark place is best. The bags we send coffee in are quite fine for storage. We also have bags especially for this
we have some articles on this:
Green Coffee Storage
Is it ok to run two popcorn poppers at the same time on the same outlet?
I don’t think most power supply can handle that. They would have to run on 2 different circuits. Most poppers are 1200 or 1400 watts. 2400 to 2800 watts is more that a single circuit can take.
I disassembled my Poppery II and split the heater from the fan circuit. I control the fan on a lighting dimmer control and the heating coil via an inexpensive temperature controller (for readout only), a small 120:24 volt xformer, a SS relay, a simple on/off switch to operate the relay/heater ckt, and a thermocouple mounted through the wall in the roasting chamber. It takes a little getting used to, manually controlling fan speed/air flow and roasting temperature at the same time, but once perfected works great.
Yes this is an outstanding option. A while back I used the instructions posted long ago on Instructables site to do this on the original Poppery 1. Glad to see people are still into this!
I am roasting beans, following the instructions to the letter. However, the roast seems to be too light. What can I do to get a darker roast?
It would be good to know what type of air popper machine you have and how much you are trying to roast. Some ideas that might help: sometimes adding more coffee, counterintuitively, will help you roast darker, because the beans trap more heat instead of letting it blow out of the machine. The problem is the Coffee needs to be rotating and moving so it doesn’t burn. Some people use a stirrer like a long wooden spoon early in the roast to keep the beans moving. That could help. It’s also important voltage and resulting wattage to the machine, so if you’re using an extension cord, try it without. Also if the ambient temperature is colder. It’s harder for the popper to get a darker roast.some people place the popper in an open sided box so it’s recirculating some warm air back into the machine. some people place the popper in a open sided box so it’s recirculating some warm air back into the machine. Be careful though it’s not getting any chaff back into the machine.
I don’t know why he says they are ready to brew after sitting all night. That makes no sense to me. My favorite thing to do is grind and brew my coffee while the beans are still hot from roasting. Nothing fresher than that.
Also a simple solution to the chaff getting everywhere is roasting outside. It’s too much smoke for inside anyway. And your neighbors will comment how amazing it smells!
I got a new West Bend Poppery II (1200 watt model), and use it to roasting my bean (Cerrado Region Brazil 2024 – High quality arabica, cupping score 83.5) I’m a new on home roster. In the first few minutes, I shake the machine as if I were tossing a wok to ensure the beans heat evenly. A large amount of chaff flies out, accompanied by a toasty aroma. After about 3 minutes, it seems that all the chaff has been shed. At around the 5-minute mark, I faintly hear the first crack, though it doesn’t seem continuous. By this point, I can see the beans darkening at a visible pace. I’ve tried roasting three times in total (each time using 60g). The first time, after 10 minutes, I ended up with beans that seemed much lighter than the dark roast I usually buy. For the second roast, I went a little over 12 minutes and got beans that were much darker and slightly oily, but still not very dark. This time, I aimed for a medium roast and only roasted for 7 minutes, which resulted in much lighter beans. Maybe my beginner’s efforts haven’t brought out the best flavor profile in the coffee, but I thoroughly enjoy the hands-on process.
I forgot to mention that the whole process didn’t produce as much smoke as people said it would. I’m not sure if I did something wrong.
Sounds like you have some good success with roasting but a little inconsistent, maybe? The outside temperature can make a big difference, and since some people roast outside or an unheated space, that can change the roast. It also matters a lot of its the first roast or a subsequent one, as they tend to go faster once the machine is heated up