How To Reroast Coffee Beans to Dark Roast

Let me start off with a disclaimer....  I am no expert at roasting coffee beans.  That being said, let me tell you what I am.  I am a stay at home mom who LOVES dark roast coffee and likes to buy locally roasted beans.  I love a nice, bitter dark roasted coffee with sweetner and cream.  Well, our local roaster who made my favorite beans, The Darkside, went out of business.  They sold their equipment to someone else.  I am trying the new roaster's beans and hoping to find one I like, but at $12.50 per pound, this can get expensive and I refuse to not drink the coffee I paid for.  In order to LIKE the coffee I paid for, I had to come up with a way to fix them.  Months ago, I looked online to see if it is possible and there are all kinds of sites who talk about roasting your own beans.  A lot involve special contraptions which stir for you.  Give me a break... it is so much easier than that.  As a matter of fact, all I use is a frying pan and a wooden spoon for stirring. 

See these light roasted beans?  They are dull and not dark at all.  Booo!  This picture is taken with a flash, so you can see that they are really dull or the light from the flash would shine off of the beans!

In preparation for re-roasting your beans, get a cookie sheet and set it beside you.  This will be used once you reach the darkness you like.  The beans will cool on this cookie sheet.

So, next put the frying pan on the cooktop, turn on the overhead fan, set the heat to med-high and dump the beans in the pan and let it all heat up together. 

Get ready to start stirring.  Once you start hearing crackling sounds, start stirring.  Not just moving the beans around the pan in circles, but I flip them a bit so the tops of the beans as well as the bottoms roast.  Keep stirring non-stop!  Now this is when it gets a little freaky.  Beware that they start smoking. 

Seriously smoking.  If the overhead fan isn't on.... turn it on now or your smoke detecors will go off.  But keep stirring!

They are getting darker and smokier!  Keep stirring!  Once they reach the darkness you like, remove the pan from the heat and keep stirring.  Stir until you dump them onto the cookie sheet and then keep stirring them until they stop smoking.

Here they are on the cookie sheet. 

and here is what they look like after they are done.  This is taken with a flash, so you can see, they are all nice and shiny and most are black which is how I like them.  The oils have surfaced and the coffee is nice and dark.  I hope this helps you rescue your lifeless, dull beans!

The end product is soooo much better!  Enjoy!