The next DIY frontier: roasting coffee beans at home

Four students are standing over a hot stove in the creamery of the Institute of Domestic Technology on a late-October Sunday at the Zane Grey Estate in Altadena. Each one is manning a hand-cranked Whirley-Pop popcorn popper filled not with popcorn but green coffee beans from Costa Rica. The raw coffee beans turn golden, then brown, then start to expand and crackle.

By Betty Hallock

December 1, 2011