Field Trip: Noble Coyote

Our trip home for Christmas included a brief visit with dear friends in Dallas, who are starting a coffee roasting business.  One of my first thoughts (besides getting to see my friend) was FIELD TRIP!  That's the "wonderful" thing about this homeschooling thing--even vacations are school for my "lucky" kids.  (quotes added to denote an opinion not necessarily shared by the children)

And now you, our lucky reader, get to go on the field trip, too!

Meet Geraldine, the roaster...

Geraldine looks a little like a locomotive.

Noble Coyote begins with hand picked green beans purchased through Fair Trade markets--standards are very high.

The beans are scooped and measured into a bin.  Here we are going with a bean from Guatemala

Next the beans are put into Geraldine's hopper and released into the drum when the temperature reaches a balmy 350ish degrees (okay, it wasn't really 350ish--there was an exact temp, but my aging memory is failing me, and I'm not exactly recalling--trust me, though, NC knows).

Once they're in the drum, turning and roasting, NC will occasionally check on the beans' progress

and listen for the first and second "crack."  These happen at fairly consistent points of the roasting process resulting from the beans expanding and popping off a thin papery layer under the increasing temperature.

After the second crack, NC empties the beans from the drum into a cooling pan, 

which rotates the beans while a fan pulls air through them to cool.

Then, they're poured into another vessel  (mmmmm...smells good)

from which they can be scooped and weighed into 8 or 12 oz packages

Ta-da!

Now that's some fantastic coffee.  Noble Coyote is a very new business--you can find them here on Facebook until their website is up and running.  

Of course, after a hard day's work, it's nice to return to headquarters for a little jam session

Thanks, Noble Coyote Coffee Roasters--we had a fabulous time.