Make Your Own Coffee

Making your own coffee is very easy and its nearly free, for the cost of a small jar of coffee you can make several jars of your home made blend and serve yourself fresh coffee whenever you want it, and its so easy a child can do it.

First you need your main ingredient which is dandelion root, yes that root which plagues so many people makes excellent coffee, so ideally you need to pick the dandelion roots just as the top is wilting, but do not overpick the dandelions as you can always come back another time and pick some more. When the top is just wilting the root is at its best and its largest and its also at its ripest for picking and is the reason you get a large quantity of them and leave those not quite at their prime.

Next you clean them and this is best done with a hosepipe set to a spray, and you rinse most of the dirt off, then you have options.

1/ If you have a container with a lid you can half fill it with dandelion roots, then fill just over half with water and replace the lid and shake vigourously, drain the water and refill and repeat as many times as you need to until you are draining out clean water.

2/ If you have a large plastic bucket you can fill this half full with the roots and just over half full with water, then agitate the roots with your hands to remove the dirt, drain the water and refill and do this as many times as you need to until you are draining out clean water.

Next you go to the sink and scrub them with a stiff scrubbing brush under running water until they are clean, then cut off the end where the greenery connected to the root and place into a colander, or onto a clean tea towel and towel them dry, then just stand them at room temperature until they are touch dry. Next they need cutting into pieces around 1/4" - 3/8th" long (6-10mm) and they need to be uniform lengths to dry equally. Place the chopped pieces onto large baking trays in a single layer and never put a pile onto the tray as you are drying them and you want them drying out equally, to do this you load all your trays into the oven and set it to around 250 degrees for around 4 hours, turning them periodically. This is the drying process completed and you can test them by taking a piece of the dried root and snapping it and if it snaps cleanly they are dried.

Turn the oven up to 325 degrees and leave them for around 30 minutes to roast, turn them a couple of times so they are all evenly roasted, and you really need to keep an eye on them at this stage so they are roasted to your requirements and not burned, you may need to leave them a little less or a little longer to achieve your desired roast.
Take your roasted roots from the oven and let them cool and place them unto sealed jars for storage.

To make your dandelion root coffee you take a full coffee cup of water and put it into a saucepan, take a teaspoon of your roasted dandelion root and put it into your coffee grinder and grind it, place your ground root into your saucepan of water and bring to the boil, as it just boils you turn it down and simmer for around 4 minutes, place a tea strainer over your cup and pour coffee through it and into your cup and drink. Save your dandelion coffee grounds and either place onto your compost heap or onto the garden.

You can eat the dandelion root raw and once you have fully cleaned your roots you can snap some off and eat it.

You then go collecting more dandelion roots from the dandelions you left if they are now wilting; and I find that three trips every year collecting dandelion roots yiealds enough roots for a full years supply of dandelion coffee. Now work out how much coffee you drink per year and how much it costs, then how much you are saving.

ive been sun drying some or trying, i was trying to avoid high temps as much as possible to keep nutrients high, flash roasting in a dry wok after sun drying, weather permitting even just a couple of days sun reduces alot of water from them so would shorten any drying time in the oven

It also reduces its nutritional value as sun drying is a slow process, flash drying leaves much of the residue inside the root and you get more goodness from it apparently.

By oven drying you reduce the moisture content below the point where it will deteriorate and you can store it for longer.

Hi assassin!

Was half expecting baldrick's recipe, but this sounds much better.

Cheers!

Try it for yourself and report back to us all, you can give your opinion on it then.

Hi assassin

.....but i got lotsa coffee - just kidding. i may try that one day, it's certainly good to know this and that it's edible (you never know...) but i've been drinking nothing but distilled water (once or twice some silver water) for last two years and don't want to break the habit just yet.

Cheers!