MacGyver of Coffee Brews His Passion

Man roasts beans in converted breadmaker

Stephen “Kupe” Kupovics is just how he likes his coffee, powerful and full of creativity.

“I’ve been doing intense coffee stuff for about six years. Just because I liked Starbucks’s drinks and I wanted to make them at home and was sick of spending the money. So, I started getting into it and I could never find any good coffee around town and it was still really expensive so I started roasting my own coffee,” said Kupovics.

It’s a homebrew made in a makeshift roaster that MacGyver would be proud of. It’s a small bread machine with a huge hole carved in the top. Kupovics turns the bread maker on “knead” so the machine spins his beans. Then he puts in a heat gun that you can purchase at any home improvement store to heat them.

“It’s pretty classy,” said Kupovics.

He then cools the beans in this bucket hooked up to a vacuum cleaner that sucks the hot air away from the fresh roast.

“And it’s really important to cool the roast really quickly or else the sweetness will lessen,” said Kupovics.

When finished he can prepare the beans in any number of contraptions.

“Like with the Siphon Brewer, I like it because you can control all the variables. You can control the temperature of the water the entire time and all the coffee is in contact with all of the water all of the time,” said Kupovics.

A Siphon Brewer looks more like the glass containers you used in a high school science class. There’s a sphere on the bottom connected by a glass tube to a cylinder at the top.

“Temperature is really important. What I always hear people say is that the cheap ‘Mr. Coffee’ coffee makers their heating element is shared with the hot plate and they just can’t get the water hot enough to extract the flavor. With these different methods, especially with the Siphon Brewer, I can hold it at 200 degrees Fahrenheit whereas with the ‘Mr. Coffee’ might be in the high 180’s. For some coffees you need that temperature to extract the flavor,” said Kupovics.

A brewer is only as good as the grounds it is brewing. Which means you need a good grinder.

“It’s a Danes Mocha, mocha grinders usually when they say that they are meant for espresso and they grind very, very fine and this will grind, people have tested, they grind as well as grinders in coffee shops costing like a $1000, $2000 or more,” said Kupovics.

The one he has is a small wooden box with a crank on top and works well for Kupovics.

“Yeah, worth the time every time… though usually just a weekend thing,” said Kupovics.

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