The best mode of roasting, where it is done at home, is to dry the coffee first, in an open vessel, until its color is slightly changed. This allows the moisture to escape. Then cover it closely and scorch it, keeping up a constant agitation, so that no portion of a kernel may be unequally heated. Too low and too slow a heat dries it up without producing the full aromatic flavor; while too great heat dissipates the oily matter and leaves only bitter charred kernels. It should be heated so as to acquire a uniform deep cinnamon color, and an oily appearance, but never a deep, dark brown color. It then should be taken from the fire and kept closely covered until cold, and further until used. While unroasted coffee improves by age, the roasted berries will very generally lose their aroma if not covered very closely. The ground stuff kept on sale in barrels, or boxes, or in papers, is not worthy the name of coffee.
Coffee should not be ground until just before using. If ground over night, it should be covered: or, what is quite as well, put into the boiler and covered with water. The water not only retains the valuable oil and other aromatic elements, but also prepares it by soaking for immediate boiling in the morning.
If the coffee pot (the "Old Dominion", of course, for in a common boiler this process would ruin the coffee by wasting the aroma) be set on the range or stove, or near the fire, so as to be kept hot all night preparatory to boiling in the morning, the beverage will be found in the morning, rich, mellow, and of a most delicious flavor.
Coffee used at supper time should be placed on or near the fire immediately after dinner and kept hot or simmering—not boiling—all the afternoon.
Try this method if you wish coffee in perfection.
Wood's improved coffee roaster is acknowledged to be the best article of the kind now in use.
This patent coffee roaster has been improved by the introduction of a triangular flange inside of each of the hemispheres, as seen in the cut. These flanges, as the roaster is turned, catch the coffee and throw it from the inner surface, thus insuring a perfect uniformity in the burning.
The Woods roaster (1849) and the Old Dominion Coffee Pot (1856) have been referred to in chapter XXXIV.
From the Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery, we learn some more about the customs prevailing "among the first cooks in the country" in roasting and making coffee in the United States about the middle of the nineteenth century. For example:
Roasting Coffee Beans