I really missed blogging this week. Which is a feeling I haven't felt in a long time. So, I'm excited to kick off this new tradition. We'll call it "Favorite Things Friday". I got the idea from a Christmas card I received from Trent and Dara. They are my dear friends in NYC. In their Christmas card, they photographed all of their favorite things. It was so neat checking out what each of them loved. So, earlier this week, I thought it would be a great way for me to celebrate Fridays. I will post about everything from my favorite apps to my favorite books, and all sorts of things in between. This week, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite hobbies. Coffee Roasting.

Coffee Roasting

If you tuned in last week, you saw my step by step guide to how I make French Press coffee. This week, I wanted to show you how I roast my own coffee. I'm not an expert on the subject, and this post will by no means cover the in-depth topic of home roasting. However, I will include links throughout this post to the articles I read that got me started. I have to credit Sweet Marias and Beaty Bass for teaching me everything I know.

My History in Coffee Roasting

I started roasting 3 years ago with a stovetop popcorn popper and a thermometer. It was the cheapest way to start this hobby, and it taught me to use my senses to tell what stage of the roasting process I was in at all times. Since the lid of my stovetop popper was always closed, I couldn't tell when the roast was done just by the color of the beans. I learned to tell by the smell of the smoke and the sound of the cracking. If you're interested in starting to roast your beans using this method, then click here. You'll learn all that you need to know to get started....and it's super cheap.

Then, last year, Beaty sold me one of his used coffee roasters. I jumped at the offer, because the smell of the smoke would saturate our house for at least a day after roasting indoors. With my new coffee roaster, I was able to roast outside, and I didn't have to hand-rotate the beans throughout the whole process....I could start the machine and play on Instagram until they were ready to go. Here's a link to some drum roasters like I have.

My Process

Last week, it took me forever to write the steps on top of the photos. So, this week, I'm just going to upload the photos and write the steps underneath.

First, you'll need a coffee roaster. I have the Gene Cafe Roaster.

You'll also need 2 colanders, an oven mitt, and green coffee beans. My all time favorite is Guatemalan Huehuetenango. I also prefer beans from the Indonesian region. (You can buy your beans from Sweet Marias).

Fill up your drum with unroasted coffee.

I set my temperature on 482 degrees and set the timer on 17 minutes. However, I don't rely on the timer to tell me when my roast is ready. When it's ready, I manually stop the machine. Don't worry...you'll see what I'm talking about. It goes without saying, but make sure you press "Start".

After a few minutes, the beans will emit a grassy smell, and they will start turning yellow. Here's a picture guide to show you the different degrees of roasts.

You'll start noticing that as your beans turn from yellow to light brown, there will be flaky outer layer that will start to appear around your beans. This is called chaff. At this point, I'm no longer playing around on facebook and Instagram. I start sitting attentively by my coffee roaster, paying close attention to the sounds and smells of "First Crack".

First crack happens around 400 degrees. It sounds a lot like popcorn popping. What you're hearing is the coffee bean rapidly expanding, which starts releasing chaff. After First Crack, you can technically remove the beans and enjoy a nice light roasted batch of coffee. However, I prefer a rich cup of coffee. I like deep chocolate and caramel flavors So, I see my roast through to the Second Crack.

Here's what chaff looks like. You'll notice at First Crack, a lot of chaff starts flying out and the smoke takes on a smoky smell.

Here comes the most important part...

First crack will last anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute. After that, there will be a period of 30s-1 minute where not much is happening. All of the sudden, the smoke will increase in intensity and will start pouring out of the machine as a light blue color. The smell will change to a richer coffee-like smell. Then, you will hear, what seems distant at first, but more prevalent as time passes, a light crackle. This is Second Crack. The difference between the sound of First Crack and Second, is that the First Crack sounds like popcorn and Second Crack sounds like Rice Krispies.

About 15 seconds into Second Crack, I press the emergency stop button, grab the drum (with an oven mitt), and pour the smoking beans into a colander. Then I pour the beans from colander to colander for about 2 minutes. This cools down the beans rapidly and lets the extra chaff blow away in the wind.

After two minutes of tossing the beans back and forth, I pour the beans onto a cooking sheet to cool off even more.

Final Product

**Jazzy-cat couldn't handle the jar of coffee getting more attention than her. So, she had to jump in the photo.

Last Notes:

• Right after the coffee is roasted, beans will release massive amounts of CO2. I go ahead and put them in a jar, but I don't seal the jar for 12 hrs.
• Coffee achieves it's peak flavors in between 4-24 hrs. However, if you put them in an airtight jar, they are good for 6 days.

Thanks for tuning in. If you're a home coffee roaster and have any other tips, then please leave a comment below :)

If you are a friend of mine on facebook, or a fan of my business page...you've noticed that I've been talking a lot about a Renew Workshop. I wanted to take a few minutes to explain what Renew is all about and why I am so passionate about it.

First, let me start with a quick overview of my journey into photography. It started on Christmas morning in 2000....I opened my first SLR camera. From that day on, I was addicted to photography. I mostly spent my time dreaming about being a National Geographic photographer; sitting on a hill above an African village, photographing the culture of far away places. There were few times that you would see a little high school Ginny Dowdy without a camera. I was even voted camera queen my junior year. See my embarrassing yearbook picture below.

Then, in 2004...I married my best friend.

At that point in my life, I was a married college student with a part time job at a daycare. So, I put my love of photography on the back burner and pursued my elementary education degree. Two years later, I received my first digital SLR for Christmas..a Canon xTi. My love for photography was reawakened. I loved being able to see my pictures immediately, and I could rock out some really awesome, over saturated, highly-contrasted edits through my free Picasa Web editing software (lol!). So, I began photographing children that were in my daycare classroom. At that point, I was finishing up my education degree at East Carolina University, interning at Wahl-Coates Elementary School, working at Greenville OB-GYN, all while pursuing my hobby/dream of photography. My life was pure chaos.

Looking back, I have NO idea how I managed it all. The only resolution I have is that I was blinded by my love of photography. I was moved to tears while watching parents break down crying after viewing images from their photo shoot. I realized, right then and there, that photography was WAY more than just snapping photos and rocking out awesome edits. It was having the ability to stop and preserve time. So, one thing led to another, and I began to book real family sessions, and then eventually weddings. Everything snowballed quickly. I remember teaching 4th grade from 6 am- 7:30pm, going home and cooking dinner, and then editing until midnight. That was a normal Mon-Fri routine. On the weekends, I would spend all day (Saturday and Sunday) at the park photographing family sessions. I would photograph around 10 family sessions a weekend. Reflecting back on that period in my life, I am still overwhelmed with love for my husband. Never once did he complain about my schedule. He ALWAYS supported my dreams. Eventually. after two years of that crazy schedule, I was able to quit teaching, and become a full-time photographer.

It was a rocky journey, full of peaks and valleys. However, my dream was bigger than my obstacles. I remember spending hours and hours editing every photo from a photography session only to be deflated when my client would order one 4x6. Over time, I was drowning in a sea of edits. My to-do list was out of control. My inbox was overflowing with clients asking when their pictures would be ready. Within my first year of being a full-time photographer, I realized that I was heading down Burnout Ave. The dream I had envisioned became a nightmare. Out of that nightmare came the birthing of Renew Workshop.

Renew Workshop is the product of my chaos. Over the past two years, I decided to really pursue a system that worked for me. I took a step back and reviewed the pitfalls of my young career, then created a workshop based on all the things I wish someone would've told me when I first started out. We go over things like "After a session, what are the steps you take from start to finish (downloading images- to uploading to your client gallery)?" Or, "How do you interact with your clients?" Or, "What companies do you use in your photography business (like album companies, studio management, editing software, outsourcing, client proofing, etc)?" I even discuss the ways I stay renewed while juggling so many different things. Sometimes, every photographer just needs simple advice and a community of other photographers as a support system. That is the heart of Renew Workshop. I want it to be a place where I can talk casually with other photographers about the things that I implemented that brought me success, and the other things that I invested in that ended up being a huge waste of time and money. It's an entire Saturday committed to getting control of your photography business so that you can live a free and Renewed life. Isn't life short enough already? There's no need in missing out on the things in life that bring you so much joy. Right?

So, that is the foundation of Renew...it's the heart beat of this workshop. If any of that registered with you, then you should come. The first Renew will be in 2 weeks in Raleigh, NC. Then in March, I will be heading to Austin, Dallas, and Lubbock, TX...then the adventure concludes in Nashville, TN. The exciting news is that I will be giving away one free seat at each location next Tuesday (Jan 31st). Then, registration opens the day after (Wednesday, Feb. 1st). For more detailed information, head over to the website. To be reminded about registration, or to stay in the loop about Renew Workshop, then take a quick second to sign up for the newsletter. (Don't worry, I'm not a huge fan of spam. So, if you sign up for the newsletter, you will only receive a couple of newsletters a year.) As always, thank you for reading my blog.

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October of 2010 was when Matt and Julie said their "I dos". Since then, I've always hoped that we could get back together for a "Day After" photo shoot with them in their wedding day attire. My dreams came true right before Christmas. Julie needed some bridal portraits and we convinced Matt to come along. We found a cute little vineyard and a run down house. (aka A Photographer's DREAM!) The only tricky part of the day was dodging the rain. I usually prefer sunny days over cloudy days, but luckily we still had some colors left on the trees due to NC's unseasonably mild winter. But seriously, I couldn't be happier with the outcome. I love having clients that become my life long friends.

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