Hottop KN8828B 2K Coffee Roaster Product User Manuals & Instructions PDF

Coffee Roasting- A Brief History

It wasn’t that long ago that it was common for people to buy raw coffee beans from local stores and then roast these at home for fresh coffee. That was particularly true in rural areas that were removed from the small roasters found in larger city neighborhoods. At that time, roasting coffee was considered a normal part of everyday life and a part of many peoples’ cultural heritage. There were many types of small hand-cranked roasting devices available, usually heated with wood, coal, or gas. These were either used in the kitchen, the garden, or on the balcony. People took pride in their ability to produce the type of roast that they liked best, and it was often a sort of cultural ceremony, or art. Each morning in these neighborhoods, the sweet smell of roasting coffee lingered in the streets.

With the advent of instant coffee, developed for the soldiers in WWII, and the post-war boom of the convenience-food industry, the art of coffee roasting was all but lost to the masses. The same corporate brands that produced instant soups and washing detergents erected huge coffee roasting facilities to provide people with a ready-made product. What use to be a fine art became a factory product. Today, most consumers buy pre-ground coffee from these factories, unaware of the culinary tradition that once existed.

Abandoning home coffee roasting has come at a price. While green (raw) coffee will easily keep for over a year with little care, it has been shown that roasted whole coffee beans lose a large part of their of lavor after two or three weeks after roasting. Once it has been ground, the coffee stales at an even faster rate, losing its fresh-roasted taste within a matter of minutes. Consequently, most cans and vacuum bricks found on the supermarkets shelves contain a product that has long since lost its precious, volatile flavors. Even when one finds whole beans in a supermarket or specialty shop, one hardly ever knows whether these beans are fresh-roasted, weeks old, or even older- sometimes much older.

Finally, like all convenience products, what you gain in convenience you pay for in lower quality and less flavor. If you think of it in terms of comparing fresh, home-baked bread to pre-sliced, store bought loaves, you begin to get the idea. The coffee available in the stores today may be of uniform quality and style, but it may be very different from what you like best.

For these reasons, the best way to ensure your getting truly fresh coffee, roasted to match your personal preferences, is to return to the great tradition of home coffee roasting. More and more people are discovering this, and home coffee roasting is quickly becoming a culinary delight.

Introduction to the Roasting Process

The changes that the coffee bean goes through during the roasting process are amazing. Those small, hard beans, when properly exposed to controlled heat, grow in size and change in color, becoming the source of one of the world’s most cherished beverages. The Hottop Coffee Roaster makes it easy to get the best from the coffee.

Getting the best flavor from the coffee is a true culinary art, and just like other similar cooking skills, you have to learn about the process to get the best results. Follow along and you will quickly learn to create the taste you like best. The Hottop Coffee Roaster is designed to allow you to get the best from the coffee, but to do so you need to know what to expect and when to expect it.