Whirley Pop Coffee Roasting: The Complete Guide
Many parallels exist between coffee and maize, including the following: These two substances are generated from the fruit of the same plant. It is possible to change a raw coffee bean or a raw popcorn kernel into something quite different and delightful by only applying a little amount of heat to them.
This implies that you may replace any of them using the same gadget, which is a Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper.
The ingredients for Whirley Pop coffee are simple, and the preparation time is short. Because of this, the beans cook beautifully and evenly.
Despite the fact that roasting in the oven is the only method of home coffee roasting that is more practical, there is little chance that you will achieve the same degree of evenness in your roast as you would with another method.
Making a Whirley Pop is simple.
An Indiana farmer named Mike Williams invented the Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper in 1980, which is a stovetop popcorn maker that can be used to manufacture popcorn on a stovetop.
He really continues to manufacture it today on his family’s farm, Wabash Valley Farms. Companies such as Franklin’s (see below) have successfully imitated his recipe.
In a Whirley Pop, how should you roast coffee?
I use the Whirley Pop to roast coffee at home on my outside barbeque grill. Do you want to see for yourself how easy it is? Watch this five-minute video of a genuine roast I made in my backyard:
You can roast coffee indoors, but the process produces a lot of smoke, as you can see in the video (see video). While roasting coffee in your kitchen, you’ll need a powerful ventilation fan above your stove, lots of open windows, and a quick way to turn off your smoke alarms. You’ll need more smoke control the darker you roast.
When cooking outdoors on a barbecue, the smoke just disappears into the air. It’s a thing of beauty.
Another advantage of using a barbecue over a gas stove coffee roaster is that the grill has a bigger and more evenly distributed heat distribution base. Your roast may be uneven no matter how frequently you stir since a stovetop burner does not evenly transmit heat over the bottom of your pot.
Read our article on Coffee Roasting for Beginners, which includes sections on coffee roasting foundations and coffee roasting stages, to prepare for your roasting session. The chemical changes that occur in coffee beans when they are roasted, as well as the stages they go through throughout the roasting process, are described in that article. These are the kind of things to look out for.
To begin, you’ll need the following items.
This is my own outdoor roasting setup, which consists of the following items:
a scale for weighing raw green coffee in the kitchen (optional)
a sieve (stainless steel or enamel) oven mitt with wood spoon
The Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper has a timer attached to it (a smartphone works fine)
How to cook veggies with a Whirley Pop
The first step is to measure the amount of coffee you have.
I usually use 250 grams of raw coffee to produce each roast. That should keep me going for a week or so.
It doesn’t seem to make a difference how much you use. Just bear in mind that roasting less coffee takes less time. Make sure to use the same quantity of veggies every time you roast them, regardless of how much you use.
Roasting is a trial-and-error technique in which each variable is adjusted one by one. You’ll have a hard time finding out what influence time and temperature have on your roasts if you’re always modifying the quantity of beans you’re using.
Fill a colander halfway with beans and a wooden spoon. Then step outside to the grill with your oven mitt and Whirley Pop to finish cooking them.
Preheat the Whirley Pop to 350 degrees Fahrenheit in step two.
To start, heat the pot to a high temperature. Because the temperature will immediately decrease when you pour in the cold beans, get a good amount of heat going first.
For this project, you’ll probably just use one side of your grill, or one burner. When I remove the grate, the Whirley Pop can be placed directly on top of the metal slats above the burner.
Turn the heat to the highest setting immediately away and place the Whirley Pop on the slats, lid snugly closed. Before using, let it cook for 4-5 minutes.
Step 3: Fill the container halfway with coffee beans.
Add the coffee beans from the colander, close the Whirley Pop top, and set your timer for 15 minutes after you can feel a reasonable amount of heat in the pot.
What’s the significance of this particular moment?
For roasting coffee beans, there is no recipe. No, and While the time and temperature are computed on a computer at the expert level so that they can repeat it for every roast, using this method, you’ll have to estimate the time and temperature. Roast the beans until they get the desired color and texture.
Knowing how long something will take is helpful. The appearance of the beans at various points along the route, as well as the time it took them to get there, are both valuable pieces of information. This establishes a foundation from which you may build upon and improve future roasts.
Experimentation in coffee roasting mainly involves changing the temperature. It’s all about when and how much you modify the heat. As you practice roasting and tasting more, cooking gets simpler. You’ll become better at roasting if you think about how your roasting affects the taste. It takes time and experience to be able to roast outstanding coffee only by sight and intuition.
Step 4: Toss the beans around in a large mixing bowl.
The agitating process is made easier with the Whirley Pop. Turning the handle is all that is required. Increase the speed to a medium setting; the more the pan is agitated, the more uniformly the roast will be cooked.
To begin, the lid is closed to allow the high heat to rapidly evaporate any moisture from the beans. Raise the cover once each minute to check on your beans.
Another thing I do every minute is reverse the spin of my Whirley Pop for a few revolutions. Any beans stuck beneath the rods near the center axle are removed and kept from burning using this procedure. After a few rotations, you may resume your normal spinning.
Raise the car’s hood in the fifth step.
Start with high heat and gradually lower it while the roast cooks. As soon as you start looking into the pot every minute, the beans will begin to change color, so keep an eye on them (they go pale before they go brown). Take a deep breath and take things a bit more leisurely by opening the Whirley Pop’s lid.
When the steam created by evaporating moisture fractures the bean from the inside out, the first crack in a coffee roast may be detected by the sound of the beans splitting. It makes a snapping sound like toothpicks.
Between the six and nine-minute mark, I’d want to receive first shot. You may arrive at your destination way too quickly if you do not open the lid. If you still arrive too soon after lifting the lid, lower the heat a bit more the next time you cook it when the beans begin to change color. You’ll have a better sense of these features the more you roast.
Step 6: Cut down on the quantity of heat utilized in the development process.
Once you’ve obviously reached the first crack stage of the cooking process, turn the heat down to medium or medium-low.
The bulk of the fascinating things that happen to your beans happen during this “development” window, which occurs between the first and second cracks.
If you take your roast out of the oven before the end of this time, it will be a light roast. If you let the coffee rest through the second crack, it will turn into a dark roast. The center of the roasting range is a medium roast. You should be conscious of your preferences, hopefully.
It’s vital to remember that this step shouldn’t happen too quickly. The coffee will taste better overall if these chemical reactions are allowed to proceed at a slower pace. Waiting five minutes between the beginning of the first crack and the beginning of the second crack seems to be beneficial. It’s conceivable that your outcomes will be different from mine.
However, bear in mind that the time between the first and second fractures is an important part of the puzzle, and it all comes down to how much heat you’re applying to the material. When I start to feel like I’m approaching second crack, I’ll typically turn down the heat to medium low or even low.
You risk staleness if you remove the heat too quickly. The beans have become too chilly to do their job, and the chemical changes have given up on them at this stage.
Instead, the beans are roasted in the oven in a traditional manner. You may still use them to make coffee, but the taste will be bland and boring.
This is something that has occurred to me before, and it isn’t a major issue. Just remember to turn on the heat for a few minutes longer next time. You’ll eventually figure out how much of each item is needed.
What is the difference between various roasting methods for coffee?
Coffee beans have its own personality, which is influenced by the plant from which they were formed, as well as the geographical and climatic conditions in which they were grown.
The different aromas of coffee beans are brought out when they are roasted, but the more they are roasted, the more similar they become. A light to medium roast will bring out the flavor of the beans you’re using, which will taste floral, fruity, or acidic depending on the type.
The taste of a dark roast is toasted. That’s not to say it’s perfect. Many people like the warm, caramelly flavors of dark-roasted coffee, which they associate with sitting by a fire. A lighter roast, on the other hand, makes it easier to detect and appreciate the traits that set one bean apart from the others.
The roast should be pulled at this point in the procedure.
It is entirely up to you when you do this.
In my opinion, it is impossible to accomplish it before second crack if one is a lover of dark roasts like myself. It’s critical to keep a watchful check on the beans once they’ve been cracked a second time. During this stage, the roasting process speeds, and you might go from a good dark roast to burned beans in a short period of time. A bit tough to see what’s going on because of the amount of smoke coming off the beans.
