In this video, I teach you a stove top coffee roasting technique that I’ve developed that is sure to give you consistently roasted beans with no scorching. After that, I review the coffee we roasted (Kenyan Kiambu Japem AB).

The ultimate stove top coffee roasting technique I’ve developed uses a large pot, which provides a large warm environment for the beans and allows us to be a little more violent with our mixing than in a traditional pan.

The technique implores 3 different methods of stirring, but the most important part is to always keep the beans moving. Picking up the pot and stirring is one technique that drives the beans around the outside of the pot very fast, and simulates air flow. Regular mixing in circle patters is the bread and butter move, and it’s what you want to do when you want the beans to get more heat. The regular circle stirring has the pot directly on the burner. The final method of stirring is what separates my technique from all others. You tilt the pan on the side and whisk the beans like you would eggs for an omelet. This stir method provides airflow for the beans, ensures they are getting plenty of movement, and allows the pot to cool slightly. This egg whisking method is especially important when you are in the first crack. Using this technique in first crack helps you extend the crack out, giving you a bright, sweet final product. Using all 3 of these stirring techniques, with a little practice, will allow ultimate control of your roast on the stove top.

Kenya Kiambu Japem AB:
Citric acidity at City and City+, a dried citrus peel and cardamom aroma, notes of orange marmalade, lychee, and dried papaya. Toasted graham and aromatic wood finish. City to City+.

Sweet Maria’s Farm Notes:
Kiambu lies near the foothills of Gatamaiyo Forest Reserve, and at the border of neighboring Muranga County. This is one of a few small estate coffees we were lucky enough to buy this year, coffees we had no direct connection with in the past. We tend to buy from the Farmers Cooperative Societies (“FCS”), and still do. But buying from a single estate affords us a different and unique opportunity to select coffee that we can trace back to it’s exact provenance, whereas with the FCS’s, you’re buying a blend of hundreds and sometimes thousands of small holders. This is certainly not a bad thing as some of our finest Kenyas are through FCS’s, just different. We still turn to the coops for the majority of our coffee, but are hoping to continue to cultivate buying relationships with a small number of Kenyan small estates as well. This is the AB outturn of a specific process batch, which refers to the bean size, AB being 15 – 17 screen, measured in 1/64th of an inch.