Roast Your Own Beans

Roasting coffee with a popcorn popper

Author: Mark Prince Posted: April 23, 2007	How-To rating: 8.8
feedback: (41) comments | read | write

Beyond getting my first fairly decent espresso machine (a Krups Novo Compact), my first real introduction into how good coffee could be has to be the day I discovered I could home roast with nothing more than green coffee, a hot air popcorn popper, and a metal colander.

I'm not talking a small jump here - I'm talking a quantum leap in discovering just how good coffee could be, and it wasn't just in the taste improvements. Home roasting gave me for the first time a genuine insight into what goes into coffee.

I have the newsgroup alt.coffee to thank for this discovery. I remember reading about roasting at home as far back as 12 years ago in the newsgroup, and by 1997, I decided to take the leap. Probably the hardest part was finding green beans. I knew of exactly one local roaster at the time - a tiny place on West Broadway in Vancouver - where I might obtain green coffee. But their prices were prohibitive, so I wrote Barry Jarrett of alt.coffee fame (who runs Riley's Coffee and Fudge in Illinois) and he sold me my first ever batch of green (months later, I was one of Tom Owen's first dozen (or hundred) customers at Sweet Marias, long before he had his own domain name).

I read everything I could find online about roasting at home - and there wasn't a helluva lot of information out there at that time. I heard about a book, called Home Coffee Roasting by some guy named Ken Davids, but I roasted my first batches before buying the book (highly recommended by the way).

Long story short, I started my amateur career as a home roaster, and all with a $20 investment, not including the coffee costs. It changed my perception of what coffee was, and along with milestones like getting a good grinder, was one of those huge leaps in terms of quality in the cup. By 2000, I was still roasting almost exclusively with a hot air popcorn popper, and I was building up my own "coffee cellar" of amazing coffees from around the world.

No Warranty! The moment you use a popper for coffee roasting, you void your warranty and absolve the manufacturer of any damage claims.

For a long time I resisted putting a popcorn popper home roasting how to on CoffeeGeek, for a variety of reasons. Truth is, I'm putting this online as a birthday present for my brother, Michael, who's celebrating his bday on the day this is published. Long story ;)

This how to is designed to give you a bare bones introduction into starting your own home roasting hobby with little cost. For more advanced discussion, please join in on our popular Home Roasting Forum.

Please note: the following how to instructs you on using a product outside of its intended use, and one that will definitely void the warranty. It also presents some dangers - including the potential for starting a fire. If you choose to follow this how to, you do so completely at your own risk; CoffeeGeek.com is not responsible for any potential damage or harm using this method may cause, nor are we responsible for the products or the voiding of your warranty. In other words, use this how to at your own risk.

With that out of the way, let's get into it!

The Tools you Need to Home Roast

The tools required for home roasting are those that won't break the bank, even if you go all out. At the very minimum, you need the following:

Popper Vents Side vents are the best - they aid circulation of the coffee.

Hot Air Popcorn Popper. While there's some debate on this, it's preferable if you get a model that has side vents inside the machine, at the base of the interior funnel. Some models have a grate on the bottom, and are generally not recommended.

Mesh colander One big one should suit, but two are better. You need these to cool down your beans as quick as possible - tossing the sizzling hot beans from one to the other is how you do it. Alternatively, you can use an extra large cookie baking sheet - the large surface area will quickly "leech" away excess heat from the beans.

Large Bowl: really, any bowl will do; but it has to be big. You place the bowl in front of the popcorn popper's air chute to collect all the chaff that will blow off your coffee as it is roasting.

Oven Mitts: to handle the hot popper as soon as you unplug it and want to remove the top and dump the beans out into your colander or cookie sheet.

Green Coffee:These days, there's dozens of sources online for amazing quality green coffee. Some even advertise on CoffeeGeek (more really should, though ;)). I'll leave you to visit the /forums/coffee/homeroast]Forums to find recommendations.

The Popper Any hot air popper will do - this is a $17 model from London Drugs in Vancouver. Colander This is an oversized colander from Ikea - enough to sift up to a few 100 grams of coffee. Chaff Bowl A huge bowl - steel's not necessary - to collect chaff. Oven Mitts Any will do - these are the silicone style mitts that have recently come on market.

What you need to know

I can't stress enough that this how to is a "do at your own risk" type instructional. Using a popcorn popper to roast coffee definitely voids the product's warranty. Also, most current-day popper will burn out within 4-6 months of roasting coffee, because of the maximum stresses put on the machines - way beyond what they normally do for popcorn.

Home roasting is also extremely hands on. You must never leave the popcorn popper while it is roasting coffee. At temperatures as high as 475F, things can spontaneously combust and catch fire. It rarely happens, so you shouldn't worry too much about this, and I've never heard of anyone setting their kitchen on fire while actually paying attention to the roasting process. Fires have happened, but in almost every case I've read about, it was through negligence - the home roaster left their appliance alone, and the coffee was roasted beyond a dark roast, and eventually ignited. While the danger is almost non-existent if you're hands on, having a fire extinguisher or bucket of water nearby, or roasting out doors is definitely recommended. IF you do see a fire start inside the popper, unplug it and douse it with the fire extinguisher or water.

Coffee Chaff This stuff is going to get everywhere. If you roast outside and it's windy, don't even bother with the bowl.

Oh and chaff. It's going to get everywhere! :)

With the scary stuff out of the way, you also need to know the following:

• Roasting in a popcorn popper typically takes about 5-7 minutes for a light roast, 7-8 minutes for a darker roast.
  
  
• Most popcorn poppers on the market today roast about 75-85 grams of green coffee per batch - or enough coffee for a 10 cup pot. You can usually do 2 or 3 back to back roasts, but this will shorten the popper's life.
  
  
• Your ears and eyes and nose will tell you how your roast is progressing. It's not something that we can really fully train you on in this how to - it comes with experience. You'll soon be able to distinguish between first and second crack (explained below), and the different smells during the roast.
  
  
• Even with the dire warnings above, home roasting is very safe - I've roasted at least 1,000 or more batches in popcorn poppers over the last 10 years, and have never had anything beyond a slowly melting plastic lid.
  
  
• Coffee loses up to 20% of its weight during roasting (and also increases in physical size by about 30-40%). So 85 grams of green can deliver as little as 70 or less grams roasted.
  
  
• Coffee needs to rest 2-5 days after roasting, as it degases. But you're welcome to try the coffee right after roasting, a day after, and two days after, if for no other reason to discover how coffee matures, peaks, and then declines after its roast date.
  
  
• And one more caveat - I've read that the some recent models of popcorn poppers now have a heater cutoff fuse that will shut down the heating coils once the temperatures get above 400F. I've not experienced this myself, but if you buy a popcorn popper and it can't seem to roast past first crack, this may be the reason why. Caveat emptor.
  
  

Step by step

Are you ready? Here's the visuals and step by step instructions

85 grams 85 grams is a good starting point for most popcorn poppers. You're saving a ton by home roasting - splurge on good quality beans. These are Honduran CoE coffee samples. Pouring the Beans Plug your popper in and let it warm up for maybe 30 seconds. Quickly pour in about half a cup of coffee, but here's a quick and dirty way to tell how much coffee your popper is capable of roasting - pour in enough green quickly until it just barely is rotating in the machine - just barely. That's your max amount. If you want, unplug the popper and weigh the coffee to know your ballpark weight Stirring early on Grab a wooden spoon or similar, and stir the coffee right away. Note that we've kept the lid off for the beginning part of the roast. Adding the lid soon will help retain heat in the popper, so once the beans start rotating a bit more, the lid goes on. Bean colour: Still green, starting to tan. Smell: barely there sweet barley

Chaff Collecting Once you start seeing chaff (the coffee's silverskin) coming out of the chute, things are starting to really happen with the coffee. This is about 2.5 minutes in. Bean colour: medium-dark tan, "cinnamon" Smell: sweet barley First Crack About 4 minutes in, you'll start to hear a sound that sounds like a gentle fire crackling away. This is known as "first crack", or when the internal cell walls of the coffee bean are being fractured by heat and boiling oils. At this point, coffee is entering the light roast or "city roast" style. Depending on the coffee, the roast can be stopped at any time after first crack begins. Bean colour: light-medium brown Smell: oils cooking, muted Temperatures If you use the optional thermometer mod (mentioned below), the coffee should be about 420F once first crack has really starting going on. Eventually it will subside.

Second Crack About 5 or 6 minutes in, and after a pause in hearing the first crack ending, you'll start to hear a different kind of crack, more muted but a higher pitch than the way first crack sounded. It will also increase in frequency, constantly. This is called "second crack" and it happens when the surface walls of the beans are fractured by what is now tiny little furnaces inside the bean. At the moment second crack starts, the beans are a "medium roast" or "Full City" style roast. Again, you have the option of stopping the roast, or continuing at this point. Surface oils will start to show up soon. Bean colour: medium-dark brown Smell: burning oil, burning organics (not wood) Dumping the Beans You can take the roast darker, but I typically like to try every bean I roast at "Full City +" or about 30 seconds into the start of second crack. Once it's at the level you want (you can peek by removing the plastic top of the popper briefly as it roasts, but use your mitts and be careful), unplug the popper, and quickly dump the coffee into your colander or cookie sheet. **Be Careful!!** The coffee is about 450F or higher at the end of the roast! Sifting the Beans If you have one colander, go outside quickly and start sifting the coffee to aerate it and also rub off additional chaff (it flies everywhere). If you have two colanders, quickly pour the coffee back and forth between the two of them. If you use a cookie sheet, just slide the coffee around - the sheet will get really hot but that's a sign of it acting as an efficient heat sink for the roast.

Optional Tools

The above is really all you need to roast coffee at home; that said, here's some optional choices to make the roasting job more educational, less seasonal, and more consistent.

Digital Scale: Popcorn poppers typically roast about 75-85 grams of green coffee - roughly enough to produce a 10 cup pot of coffee - though some can roast more, others roast less. A digital scale helps you be more accurate in not only doing consistent roasts, but also finding out what the ideal green bean starting weight you need is.

Candy Thermometer: Most of the needle thermometers you see out there are designed for baking and meats, and measure up to around 220, 250F, but there is a special type of needle thermometer that can measure up to 550F or higher (but costs about the same as the other meat thermometers - around $10-$15). You need the higher temperature one to measure your roasts, which can get as high as 475F.

You can use the thermometer in several different ways. Many people literally drill an angled hole in the side of their poppers so that the needle sits right in the middle of the rotating coffee, and can easily be read while the roast goes on. You can also drill a hole in the plastic lid of the popper, but I've found the thermometer gets so hot there, it slowly melts the plastic, deforming it.

Use the thermometer to chart things like at what temperatures 1rst and second crack occur, when you want to stop the roast, etc etc.

Modding your popcorn popper roaster

Candy Thermometer Called a "candy" therm because of the higher temperature readings (meat rarely needs to be read to 550F). Easy to find in any kitchen store Drill Time Unplug the popper, and determine the best angle you should drill your holes through it so the needle isn't sitting on the bottom. Eyeball it or measure, then drill. You're going through plastic then metal. Therm in place. In place, it's easy to see and read. Fully inserted While not optimal (that would be dead centre, about half an inch above the bottom), this is pretty good - the needle sits above the bottom by about 5mm, and should give good readings.

Big Brown Box: If you want to roast outdoors and live in a colder climate, get a box big enough to fit both the popper and your big bowl for the chaff in. Even in temperatures as low as 0 Celsius, the box acts enough as an insulator to keep the area around the popper warm so it doesn't screw up your roasting times. Poppers do not like cold weather. Just don't burn everything down ;)

Well there you go - I hope this serves as a good introduction to home roasting - a hobby that returns results infinitely more valuable than the start up costs! And happy birthday, Mike!

See our other Guides and How Tos

Perfect Retirement

Perfect Retirement Plan

Outside the Bristol Zoo, in England, there is a parking lot for 150 cars and
8 coaches, or buses.

It was manned by a very pleasant attendant with a ticket machine charging
cars £1 (about $1.40) and coaches A£5 (about $7).

This parking attendant worked there solid for all of 25 years.
Then, one day, he just didn't turn up for work.

"Oh well", said Bristol Zoo Management - "we'd better phone up the City
Council and get them to send a new parking attendant..."

"Err ... no", said the Council, "that parking lot is your responsibility."
"Err ... no", said Bristol Zoo Management, "the attendant was employed by
the City Council, wasn't he?"
"Err .... NO!" insisted the Council.

Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, is a bloke who had
been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at A£400 (about $560) per day at
Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to
just over A£3.6 million ($7 million -- or $280,000 every year for 25 years)!!

And no one even knows his name.

Looking into the Past - Flickr Slideshow

http://www.flickr.com/groups/lookingintothepast/pool/show/

Five Must-Have Tools for Any Kitchen

By Kevin Purdy, 9:00 AM on Tue Jun 9 2009, 24,715 views (Edit post, Set to draft, Slurp)

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It's all too easy to get seriously excited about expanding your kitchen repertoire—and seriously in debt buying for that kitchen. Here are five kitchen-related things you really need and how to use them efficiently.

Neither you nor your Lifehacker editors have the time and foresight to run down everything you'll need for all your cooking, in any kitchen, for every recipe, throughout your entire life. What we're listing here are five core purchases that any kitchen should have, along with the best advice we've seen on how to get the most for your money out of them.

The tips and research for these items are pulled from one editor's experience growing from a single dude who calls his mom to make mashed potatoes to a fairly reliable home cook who makes the big dinners, along with a few great reads:

• A No-Frills Kitchen Still Cooks (Mark Bittman, New York Times).
• Kitchen essentials, and items you can pass by (Russ Parsons, Amy Scattergood, Los Angeles Times).
• Cooks Illustrated (from print editions, subscription required for web reading).
• Our interview with food writer Michael Ruhlman.

Now, on to the things we wish we had right out of college:

Three decent knives, sharpener for two of them

If we were crazed minimalists, we'd say you only truly need an eight-inch, plastic-handled stainless alloy chef's knife, one you can find at a restaurant supply store for $10 (more on that later). You should test out any chef's knife you're looking at, and consider santoku-shaped blades if you do a lot of mincing or fine chopping. The key is making sure any knife feels right in your hand. The handle and weight in your hand are just as important as the blade, since proper use and sharpening should take care of that. Other than that, a sharp, sturdy paring knife and a cheap-as-you-can-get serrated bread knife have you covered for everything else. Skip the boning/fileting and utility knives, because you definitely don't filet fish or slice giant mozzarella wheels that often.

How do you keep your knife sharp? Popular Mechanics has a good two-paragraph primer. Using a two-sided sharpening stone:

... Lubricate the coarse side of the stone with mineral oil or water; then push the blade (at a 22- to 25-degree angle) across in a sweeping motion, like you're cutting a thin slice off the stone. "Flip the knife and work the other side until a slight burr forms along the edge," Montagno says. "Switch to the fine side of the stone, lift the blade to a slightly higher angle and hone off the burr to create a razor-sharp micro bevel." Obviously you can skip this process with the serrated bread knife, which can probably cut through loaves of bread long after you're dead.

Five pots and pans

How you save money here depends on how you cook. Unless you make a lot of meat dishes with reduction sauces containing browned bits, you really need just one cheap medium-sized nonstick skillet for your day-to-day cooking, small and larger-sized metal saucepan, a pasta-sized pot with a lid, and one serious, large (12- or 14-inch) steel pan with steep sides for your grander culinary ambitions, stir-frys, and bigger meat meals. We're serious on the nonstick skillet being cheap, if safe-looking, because even the most expensive kind inevitably flake off, chip, and lose their egg-repelling properties over time.

Update: We don't intend to imply you should completely cheap out on your pots and pans. As many commenters noted, good cast iron pans, treated well, can last a lifetime. We're just suggesting the multi-piece sets with every single size of pan, pot, and boiler, with three different lids, aren't really necessary for cooking.

Everything else? That's where it gets discretionary. One doesn't spend three months' salary at Sears to make sure they've got every tool for any imaginable home project, but instead builds a tool set over time. Roasting pans, springform cake pans, loaf pans, double boilers—try to borrow them for rare occasions, make do with makeshift versions, or possibly get lucky at your local Goodwill. Otherwise, another trip to the restaurant supply store is in your future.

A restaurant supply store, or an Asian market

If you're thinking about buying your cookware from a store in a mall, strip or otherwise, don't do it. Similarly, don't buy multi-pot sets, especially the kind signed by a chef you've seen on television. The best value for your dollar is found at your local or regional restaurant supply store. That's where the restaurants you recommend to friends buy their stuff, and they make their money on volume. For certain kinds of cooking hardware, Asian food markets and "trading companies" often stock a lot of really cheap goods. For recipes that require random equipment you're not sure you might use again, they're often the smart buy.

No such luck with your local map search? Try an online purveyor of restaurant wares, at least for the smaller stuff. I've had success with BigTray.com, but there are, to be sure, other sites with reliable service. Know of one? Tell us about it in the comments. Photo by star5112.

Serious instant read thermometer

You don't have to spend a lot on this, but it's crucial to buy quality instead of cheap. That's spoken as someone who loves to grill, and whose wife does not like to eat on the bleeding edge of food safety. Cook's Illustrated, the magazine that takes no advertising and tests things out to a kind of ridiculous degree, rates this $15 Taylor thermometer (pictured at right) as a best value, and you can find it even cheaper through some merchants. Go too cheap and you end up with unreadable LCD screens, melted plastic, and seriously slow updates that leave your food overcooked and the chef overworked.

Reliable, small kitchen scale

When you're new to stove-top cooking, you'll want to get precise with your meat, vegetable, and starch measurements to ensure everything stays flavored in proportion. When you start dipping your toes into baking, that's when you'll really be glad you have a scale. The way you pack flour, the moisture in the air, and the random sizes of ingredients like eggs or fruits can seriously impact the outcome of a baking recipe—unless you're weighing things in proportion. You don't have to spend a lot, but you do want something digital, that holds up to 10 pounds, and which can "tare," or set itself to zero, when you've got a container on it that doesn't count in the measurement. Photo by advencap.

---

What cookware, gadgets, or other kitchen items can you not imagine living without, despite our minimalist proclamations? What's the best cheap, yet awesome, item in your own cooking space? Trade your tips in the comments.

New Homely Doll To Improve Self-Image Of Young Girls

June 5, 2009 | Issue 45•23

EL SEGUNDO, CA—Executives at Mattel Inc. held a press conference Monday to unveil the toy company's latest product, Plain Pamela, a homely doll designed to boost the confidence of girls ages 7 to 12.

Enlarge Image

Girls of all ages can spend hours feeling superior to the squat, unappealing doll.

The pale, unsightly plaything, which has a plastic torso scaled to the proportions of a 5-foot-4, 179-pound woman in her mid-30s, is being touted as the first toy expressly intended to raise the sense of physical and emotional self-worth in preteen females.

"While we still value our classic Barbie franchise, we understand the need for dolls that offer an alternative body image," Mattel CEO Robert Eckert said. "And that's why we've created Plain Pamela. She's drab, she's dumpy, she's nothing to write home about, and she's going to make the girls of America feel like beauty queens."

Added Eckert, "Relatively speaking."

Mattel, which has been criticized in the past for promoting unrealistic standards of beauty, claimed that the new doll would not only improve the self-esteem of growing girls, but would also give them someone to feel superior to for hours on end.

Modestly priced at $7.99, each Plain Pamela doll comes prepackaged with a variety of unflattering and ill-fitting blouses to drape over her shapeless torso, as well as a packet of paste-on psoriasis spots to apply along her arms and back.

Mattel designers have also included a button at the base of the doll's pudgy neck that randomly plays one of 24 preprogrammed phrases, including "I wish I was pretty like you," "That's okay, you go out and have fun without me," and "Ugh."

"Kids today want toys that are highly customizable," Eckert said. "Which is why every Plain Pamela comes with four interchangeable hairstyles: Just-Woke-Up, Too-Long, Too-Short, and What's-the-Point-of-Even-Trying-Anymore-It's-Not-Like-It's-Going-to-Make-a-Difference. Girls are going to love deciding which of Pamela's hairdos makes them look prettier by comparison."

"Plus, each doll comes with a variety of fun, ego-enhancing features that will allow girls to feel better about themselves as they help Pamela fit into her size-14 doll pants or wipe refillable 'tears' from her swollen face," Eckert added. "This is a huge leap forward in body-positive toys."

Mattel plans in the future to sell a number of playsets for the doll, including the Plain Pamela Cramped Studio Apartment, complete with special Dinner-for-One Kitchenette and Depressing Stack of Old People Magazines.

If Plain Pamela catches on with kids, company officials said, she may soon be joined by an entire line of fun, psychologically reassuring friends. Already in the works for the fall are Lil'-Too-Drunk Linda, whose debilitating dependence on alcohol will make any girl feel better about her own unstable home life, and Plain Pamela's Sympathetic Gay Friend, Craig.

Medical consultants for Mattel have confirmed that the poorly postured and overly awkward doll can effectively serve as an image-enhancing device for children.

"Preliminary tests have shown that as little as one hour of playtime with Plain Pamela can make even the frumpiest, least self-assured young girl feel remarkably positive about her own physical attributes," Mattel child psychologist Dr. Martin Janosch said. "Which, if you've seen the Plain Pamela doll, is not entirely surprising."

Added Dr. Janosch, "She's not exactly easy on the eye."

Mattel also announced that it would begin production next year on Timorous Tim, a fey, cowardly action figure designed to boost the confidence of shy young boys.

unnecessarily Caffeinated Products

The 10 Most Unnecessarily Caffeinated Consumer Products

June 4, 2009 

So Mountain Dew caught a lot of flak when they came out with their Game Fuel. Why? Because it's regular old Mountain Dew but a different color and flavor, with the masterchief on the bottle. We rounded up some real gamer fuel for you, so you can manage to get caffeine pumping through your system in the most efficient way possible…

Caffeinated Inhaler

Coffee Equivalent: 1.5 cups per puff

Made by Buzzaire, this puffer delivers a quick dose of caffeine straight to your lungs, which have the highest density of blood vessels in your body. A single puffer cartridge contains 100 doses, carrying the totally up to 150 cups of coffee per cartridge. The good news is, when you're huffing and puffing up a flight of stairs from too much caffeine and not enough oxygen, people will just think you have asthma.

Caffeinated Potato Chips

Coffee Equivalent: 3.5 cups per bag

That's right, you heard us. Each 3.5 ounce bag of NRG Potato Chips contains 3.5 cups of coffee. This is caffeine you could use to seriously wreck a party. Simply buy a bunch of bags, empty the chip bowl, and fill it with NRG chips. Hilarity ensues!!! On another note, this completely redefines our interpretation of 'couch potato.'

Caffeinated Water

Coffee Equivalent: 1 strong cup

So you need to stay awake, but don't like the taste of coffee, soda, energy drinks, tea, or pretty much anything but water? Worry not, dear readers. FYXX bottled water contains a strong cup of coffee in every bottle. Not actually, just the caffeine equivalent. Otherwise, it'd be really shitty coffee, and even shittier water.

Caffeinated Beer

Coffee Equivalent: 2.25 cups per bottle

For all those gamers who like to stay up late and drink, then play Call of Duty (or post Youtube comments), this beer is for you. Not only does it have the equivalent of two and a quarter cups of coffee, it glows in the fucking dark, so your alcoholic ass can find it when the lights are off.

Caffeinated Breath Mints

Coffee Equivalent: miniscule

From the stupidly-hilarious people who got you drinking Bawls, and suffering through the thousand jokes everyone thought they were 'clever' enough to come up with, comes Bawls Buzz, a breath mint with caffeine. The reason this product made the list is because, not only do these breath mints contain caffeine, they contain too little caffeine to give a mouse a buzz. Each mint contains 1mg of caffeine, so in order to get the buzz of a cup of coffee, you'd need to eat 100 mints, or about 2 tins of the shit. Stick to the coffee.

Caffeinated Soap

Coffee Equivalent: 2.5 cups per wash

Do you like waking up in the morning and taking a shower? Do you like being wide awake before you have your coffee, or even forgoing coffee because it tastes like Worg shit? Well then have we got a product for you! Caffeinated soap, which contains 15 'servings,' brings 2.5 cups worth of caffeine to the metaphorical table with each washing. If, however, you decided to eat the bar of soap, you'd be introduced to lye. And the full amount of caffeine, 3750 mg, or 37.5 cups of coffee. Good luck trying NOT to look like an epileptic, foaming at the mouth from the lye and all.

Caffeinated Sunflower Seeds

Coffee Equivalent: 1.5 cups per serving

If you're anything like us, you hate sunflower seeds, crabs, lobster, and peanuts. And if you're any more like us, your reason is is that it's too much damned work to get to a little bit of food. Well, unlike your stereotypically lazy American-esque ass, we changed our minds. Why? Because we found Sumseeds, a brand that adds about 140mg of caffeine (or about 1.5 cups of coffee) per serving. After the first handful, you'll be too jittery to control your mouth and tongue properly, and would be better off swallowing the damned things whole.

Caffeinated Oatmeal

Coffee Equivalent: 1 weak cup

In what is probably the greatest improvement to oatmeal since the addition of a picture of a man in a funny hat to the box, the kindly people at Sturm Foods have incorporated a cup of coffee's worth of caffeine into a single serving of Oatmeal. It seems there is now enough for 'This complete breakfast,' with coffee, caffeinated oatmeal, caffeinated water, what's next, caffeinated cereal?

Caffeinated Cereal

Coffee Equivalent: 2 cups

Damnit internet, we spoke too soon. When Captain Crunch isn't enough to wake you (or your pre-diabetic child) up in the morning, Spazztroids, a bad play on the word 'Asteroids,' is there for you. With a whopping 2 cups of coffee per bowl, this cereal is the coup de gras of breakfast cereal, and the coup d'etat of your child's previously undiabetic body.

Caffeinated Pantyhose

Coffee Equivalent:Unknown

Caffeinated pantyhose. Such a bizarre product to caffeinate. Because their website does not say how much caffeine they contain, we wrote a nice e-mail to their Vice President, Taylor Pace. The e-mail asked, in not so many words, how many cups of coffee fit into one set.  She responded with this clever tidbit:  I'm sorry but I have no idea on how to answer this. This is the best I can do. Touche, caffeine tights.