First World Problem: Staying up too late to roast espresso

I completely forgot that I needed to roast espresso today until late at night. Once roasted coffee needs at least 48 hours to off-gas before its ready to use, so it was either stay up and roast tonight or run to the store tomorrow to buy coffee that was likely roasted months ago. Once roasted, coffee only lasts a week or so--and that is assuming it is not preground. Once ground you have seconds to minutes before all of the aromatic oils dissipate. Of course, none of this applies to Starbucks espresso which is roasted so dark that it is essentially charcoal with caffeine.

I usually pick coffee beans that I can roast on the lighter end, thereby preserving more of the regional flavors. Here are some green beans I purchased from Sweet Maria's:

I roast a cup at a time in a 12 year old iRoast air roaster:

This thing is really loud and has no smoke filter, so I have to put it under the range vent, which is also loud. All that noise makes it difficult to hear the cracks, which are clues to the degree of roast. Coffee has two cracks while roasting. The first is similar to popcorn, but much fainter: a crack heard when internal moisture finally escapes the bean. The second is when the cellulose fibers fracture from heat expansion. I typically roast to the beginning of second crack.

Staying up late to roast is worth it when I get this:

While you can see it, you cannot smell how sweet it is. When roasted and brewed right, coffee is naturally sweet. It is very difficult to get all the variables right though. In fact, there are more variables to coffee than wine.

While roasting each week, I also take time to backflush and clean my espresso machine:

This is a LaSpaziale Vivaldi that I bought in 2005. It has been running 24/7 nearly the entire time, except for two weeks after Hurricane Ike when we lost power, and around 3 weeks or so total due to downtime waiting for parts to come. I just replaced the coffee boiler heating element for the second time.

My ginder is a Mazzer Super Jolly that I bought on Ebay in 2005 when Starbucks was selling all of their grinders as they shifted to superautomatic machines with built in grinders. When I bought it, it was probably at least 5-10 years old. After all this time, I just had to replace the grind timer.

What is so impressive about these machines is that I can still get parts. How often can you say that about the things you buy?

Todd