How To Smoke Coffee Beans

What's up yall, 

Evan Sledge here with Whiskey Morning Coffee. I am one of the founders that started using pecan and cherry wood to smoke our coffee beans. Smoked coffee beans are something you can do with your normal coffee at your house. I will outline what type of smoker to use, what wood we use, and how smoking your coffee will taste.

What Type of Smoker do I need?

You can smoke your coffee beans in really any smoker. The main key with smoking is that you want little to no heat. The little to no heat is different than smoking let's say meat. Because the coffee is already roasted you don't want to keep cooking the bean while it is smoking. 

The easiest way to add smoke without applying a lot of heat would be to use a hot plate. Go to the store and get you an electric hot plate and a Dutch oven or cast-iron pan. put the hot plate in your smoker and fill up your Dutch oven with your choice of wood chips. The hot plate will heat up the chips so that they smoke without putting off too much heat. 

After getting your smoke rolling, layer your coffee beans evenly on a perforated sheet or grate so that the smoke can flow upward through your beans. 

Whiskey Morning smokes their coffee for a total of 8 hours. A coffee bean will not absorb the smoke as easy as meat, so it will take some time. After 8 hours, there will be a thin smoke layer on the outside of the coffee bean that will come through when you grind it and brew your coffee. 

New Whiskey Morning Coffee Cold Smoker

At the end of 2022, we built a new cold smoker. The design on the new smoker is similar to designs we used while working in Alaska. The new cold smoker was a must to smoke 3X as much coffee. 

The new cold smoker is wooden, uses an elevated smoke shack to separate the heat, and has a sliding tray system to load/unload. 

The new cold smoker might be a little overkill if you are just smoking for personal consumption. However, you can downsize the designs and it will work just fine.  

What Wood Do We Use?

Here at Whiskey Morning, we use lighter smoke wood. Some common smoking wood that has a lighter smoke would be fruit wood, alder, pecan, and post oak. You can use mesquite, and hickory at home to smoke your coffee, but for our taste it has a harsh burnt taste. For our Texian Army Brew we use pecan and cherry wood to smoke the coffee. The pecan wood is a slightly heavier smoke that is needed in order to be notices in the cup after brewing. Along with Pecan wood we use cherry wood because the cherry will cover up the bitter bight common in a cup of coffee. 

What Smoked Coffee Taste Like

You have cold smoked your coffee beans with a light wood for 8 hours. Now it is time to enjoy your brew! The smell of your coffee beans is going to change to bacon frying smell. Once you brew the coffee the smoke is going to show up on the backend. The best part about a smoked coffee is that the bitter backend will be a lot less noticeable.

Let Us Know What You Think

If you don't have time to smoke your own coffee or want to try one first, you can order our Texian Army Brew smoked coffee. 

If you try this at home let us know how it turns out!