I’ve tried vac seal and freeze, and while it may slow degradation, its overhyped. after 3-4 months, you’ll notice a definite drop off. I used my kitchen freezer that does thaw cycles, not a chest freezer which doesn’t. The later supposedly has better results.
I transfer my beans into burlap bags and store in the cellar.
Only buy as much as you will use in <3 months. At a pound a week you can still order a couple of five pound bags and save on shipping and the lower bulk cost. As long as your house isn’t super humid, you should be fine. I would not recommend freezing them as doing it properly is fairly complicated.
Dry as a bone here.
And FWIW, we are finding the Behmor easy to use, despite having no prior experience roasting coffee. First crack is (usually) loud and clear. The afterburner does a good job handling smoke… we have seen none with the 1/2 and 1/4 lb batches so far. Total roast times (following short preheat and taking beans past 1st Crack, sometimes into beginning of 2C) have been on the order of 8-1/2 to 9-1/4 min for 1/4 lb batches, 13-14 min for 1/2 lb. We have fairly consistent electrical power: Kill-a-watt meter indicates 119-120V before starting the roaster; 116-117V while it is running. It will interesting to see what happens in the summer when millions of ACs are running simultaneously…
David, so now that you feel you have it dialed in, what differences do you notice compared to locally roasted coffee you could buy before.? Is it just cheaper, or better somehow. I have become a coffee nut, but am having difficulty seeing the personal advantage to home roasting, but then again I have.never tried it
Mark, the primary advantages are freshness and choice.
Mark – mostly it is convenience and selection. Shops with freshly roasted coffee hereabouts require a serious drive – more than I am willing to every week do to keep fresh coffee in the house. And by stocking green coffee at home, you can maintain a selection better than many shops offer. Here is a list of beans currently available at Sweet Maria’s, for example. And there are many other online sources for green coffee beans.
http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.greencoffee.mvc.php?source=side
Last but not least, I can have beans roasted the way I want. Peet’s, followed by Starbucks, popularized dark-roasted everything. I prefer many African coffees (e.g.) at City/City +, and now that is what I get.
The cost can be a factor. $20+/lb for a place that roasts their own beans v. $5/lb at home. A pound per week will pay for a $700 machine in a year.
Thanks guys…seriously considered it, but I have two local roasters and plenty (like red bird ) of internet places.
Drinking 99% espresso it looks like I need that hot top model, and am not willing to spend a grand on another machine.
My coffee today, home roasted from East Timor, is soooo frikkin good. I love East Timor coffee – luckily the supply seems to be increasing. For a while it was almost impossible to come by.
Tim… do you mind if I ask the source of those beans?
Pretty sure it was Coffee Bean Corral. I only order there and Sweet Marias. I don’t even remember the last time Sweet Marias had anything from Timor.
Thanks. A quick check shows that it is indeed CBC. They have an organic FT, and a “Royal”-something decaf from Timor. Looks like I’ll be ordering from them this weekend.
This was my initial interest. As the better local roasters crossed that $20/lb. threshold it becomes tough when you can do maybe $5-7 at home. They say you lose 10-15% of weight in roast, so tweak that price, but still.
Why do you say that you need that for espresso? I guess it depends on what you are using, but I am under the impression that the Behmor is fine for espresso… No?
Thought I read that on sm site. That you needed one of the higher dollar ones to get the roast?
I don’t see why. I am sure it would depend on how you want your espresso roasted, and what type of beans you are using. Most espressos are blends, so they would require roasting each type to the correct point and then blending. I don’t think you could cut corners to roast the entire batch on any machine. Someone who does this regularly could tell us more of course.
Thanks but even. Ore reason I don’t want to roast. I can make my cappas in under 3 minutes from getting up including grinding and all. Roasting adds way to much to my simple life right now.
Dear enablers – I bought a Behmor yesterday. But of course I can’t use it because I need a digital scale to weigh my beans. 
This should get you close enough… I weighed some green coffee beans in a measuring cup…
1/4 lb = 5/8 cup (150 ml)
Amazon has some decent scales that weigh in increments of 0.5 or 1 gram for ca. $25.