Have you ever wondered, “Can I roast good coffee at home?” or “Will roasting my own coffee be cheaper?” We’ll answer those questions and more in this article.
If you enjoy coffee, there’s absolutely no reason not to roast your beans at home. It’s a fun hobby that can be shared with family and friends who appreciate a good cup of joe. There’s simply nothing not to like.

Pros:
- Home-roasting coffee is less expensive than most pre-roasted retail beans.
- Whatever your flavor preference, you can choose the perfect roasting profile for your palate.
- Custom coffee roasting is brilliant for gift-giving.
- The time commitment is less than you may think.
- Never drink or serve stale coffee again! You can roast beans as needed.
- Low investment. Many entry-level options will pay for themselves in less than one year.
- If you like a hobby where you can achieve proficiency in a short timeframe, but still be learning 10 years from now, coffee roasting ticks all the boxes.
Cons:
- If roasting indoors, do so with proper ventilation, otherwise the smoke may trigger your smoke alarms.
- Although rare, beans can be over-roasted and undrinkable. Careful attention to roasting and cooling time is required if you are new to the process.
Let’s dive deeper into each benefit of DIY roasting.
Home-roasting coffee is less expensive than most pre-roasted retail beans.
These days, there are a host of online green coffee retailers. As of December 2022, you can purchase beans for as little as $4.49 USD per pound for a 10 LB purchase or as low as $3.99 per pound for a 33 LB purchase. Want to try a pound of this and a pound of that? No problem. You can buy a variety of green coffee beans in the range of $4.79 to $7.99 per pound, depending on where the coffee is grown and the type of bean. Arabica beans are typically more expensive than Robusta varieties. The prices quoted here are for Arabica coffee. More about that in another article.
Here’s an average example of a median-price, home-roasted coffee vs. a pre-roasted retail bag.
Pre-roasted Retail Whole Bean Coffee
- Online prices: December 2022
- Avg range: $12.49 – $27.99 (with delivery)
DIY Roasted Whole Bean Coffee
- Online prices: December 2022
- Avg range: $3.99 – $15.48 (with delivery)
Even with an approximate 20% loss in weight during roasting, the average price of green coffee beans will range from $4.99 to $19.35 with delivery.
Here’s the good news. Packaged green coffee beans have a shelf life of at least one year, according to some sources. A few online articles even suggest the storage life can be much longer.
Whatever your flavor preference, you can choose the perfect roasting profile for your palate.
The benefits of home-roasting coffee aren’t just financial. It’s about flavor too.
Whatever your taste preference, from Arabica to Italian roasts, and everything in between, DIY roasting provides a wide array of flavor possibilities. Then there’s the myriad of green bean origins and varieties that impact the taste of a cup too.
Do you like fruity overtones with a bright finish? Or is an earthy flavor with muted acidity your favorite choice? With your own roasting equipment, you can take a journey to discover how roasting times, temperatures, and methods affect green coffee beans. When you have access to all the roasting and green bean possibilities, you may discover that what you currently like in a roast or origin may be dramatically improved once you fine-tune your roasting method. Ultimately, it is fun to learn the perfect roasting profile for your palate and what you can do to replicate it.

Custom coffee roasting is brilliant for gift-giving.
Few things in life convey love and thoughtfulness as handcrafted gifts. So, why not give the gift of home-roasted coffee? Think of the opportunities to share a truly artisan gift with your family, friends, or colleagues.
An online search will lead you to many packaging resources for coffee roasting bags and labels that will make your gift distinctive. For example, there are Kraft bags made especially for freshly roasted coffee that are coated with a special interior layer to help seal freshness in and keep oxygen out. They come in multiple gift-giving sizes like 8 oz (250g) or 1 lb (500g). Others are available with or without one-way degassing valves.
If you have access to a printer, you can design and print your own bag labels using templates for the bag size you choose. There are also several online services that allow you to design your bag label and order from your computer.
The time commitment may be less than you think.
Depending on which roaster you choose, the time to process a batch of roasted beans can range from 15-30 minutes, including cleanup time. The larger your roasting capacity, the fewer batches you’ll need to roast during the week, but small-capacity roasters can sometimes finish a roast quicker with less cooling time required.
The questions for you to consider are:
- What is the weekly coffee consumption of my household?
- Will my preferred roasting method, duration, and yield match my budget and schedule?
Never drink or serve stale coffee again! You can roast beans as needed.
Those who enjoy roasting their own coffee have the advantage of never running out of freshly roasted beans! With the extended shelf life of green beans, keeping tasty coffee on hand is a huge benefit.
Depending on consumption, a roasting rhythm naturally develops for home roasters. Some think that peak flavor, after roasting and degassing, is from day 3 through 6. With this in mind, micro-batches of one quarter, half pound, or a full pound, can be processed sequentially in one roasting session and placed into multiple glass canning jars with lids. When your freshly roasted coffee beans are stored in a dark, dry location, any concerns about drinking stale coffee should be consigned to a distant memory of your former life when you purchased pre-roasted coffee from a retailer.
Many home roasters who had an ample supply of green beans before Covid never had to endure a bad cup of coffee during the pandemic. Even with temporary store closures and supply disruption, DIY roasting kept the pantry supplied with delicious, fresh coffee beans.
Low investment. Many entry-level options will pay for themselves in less than one year.
Using the math in this article, let’s calculate some ROI (Return On Investment) estimates for purchasing a coffee roaster. We’ll plan on a deeper dive into roasting gear in a future article.
Entry-level roasters can be as inexpensive as $25-$50 for a used or new air popcorn popper to less than $50 for a new stovetop popper with a manual crank. Other low-cost alternatives are as simple as a stovetop skillet or oven, provided you have good ventilation. Conversely, larger capacity roasters designed for semi-pro or small commercial roasters can sell for as much as $5,000. But for entry-level ROI, we’ll use $250 as our budget for a first-time, dedicated coffee roaster to determine the breakeven point of green bean savings vs. roasting equipment.
As a simple math example, if home-roasted beans average $7.50 for a pound of DIY roast and retail-roasted beans are $15.00, the savings of home roasting is $7.50 per pound. By dividing the savings per pound by the roaster cost, it will take 34 pounds of green beans to pay for the roaster ($250/$7.50 = 34). Or let’s say you consume around 3 pounds of coffee per month, your roaster will pay for itself in a year, depending on the power source you use for the roaster. Beyond the first year, your coffee budget could see a savings of 50% using the scenario above, and all while you’ll be enjoying better-tasting java. What’s not to like? Fresh coffee, delivered daily to your cup, handcrafted exactly the way you like it.

If you like a hobby where you can achieve proficiency in a short timeframe, but still be learning 10 years from now, coffee roasting ticks all the boxes.
As with many things in life, you have to start somewhere. The good news is the learning curve in roasting a delicious cup is quickly attainable and simpler than you may think. Once you take a sip of that first, successfully roasted batch, you’ll probably experience immense satisfaction.
Whether launching out on your roasting journey with a manually cranked popcorn popper on a gas grill or automating most of the process with a high-tech electric roaster, you should be able to produce a tasty roast profile within a few attempts. There are plenty of online instructional videos that can guide the way. All you need is the desire and some good quality green beans.
Once you have made that first, satisfying batch of freshly roasted coffee, there will be an abundance of discoveries to explore on your coffee journey. Some of the topics to learn are:
- Coffee types and origins
- Visual stages of roasting
- Taste variations within the roasting curve
- Audible responses during a roast, including first and second crack
- Roasting aromas and the impact on flavor
- Why, when, and how to cool a batch
- Beyond roasting, and how brewing or extruding coffee impacts flavor
With all of the learning resources and excellent equipment available, there’s never been a better time to begin roasting coffee at home than now. It’s interesting, convenient, affordable, delicious, and most importantly, fun! It’s our opinion that you have everything to gain. Now that we’ve covered the why for coffee roasting at home, the next article is about the how. See “Home coffee roasting for beginners, fully explained.”