Oven Roasting Cacao Beans
A step-by-step roast profile for home ovens. Use bean surface temperature as your guide, not time.
Start at 350°F in a hot Pyrex dish, reduce heat as beans warm up, and pull when the surface hits 250–265°F. Stir every 5 minutes. Leave uncovered for 3 hours after — the roast is still developing. A thermometer gun is essential.
Get a thermometer gun →This profile is a solid starting point — not a fixed rule. Every origin behaves differently, and small changes in temperature or timing can shift the flavor significantly. Experimenting is half the fun. The roast logger built into Cacao Journal makes it easy to record each batch and compare profiles over time, so you can actually learn from what you try.
A thermometer gun is the single most useful tool for home roasting. Bean surface temperature is far more reliable than time or sound — not all varieties crack or pop, and oven temperatures vary. Don't roast by the clock.
Place a Pyrex rectangular dish on the center rack and preheat the oven to 350°F. Let it run at least 15 minutes so the dish itself is fully hot when the beans go in.
Pour beans into the hot dish. Overlapping is fine — 2 lbs will fill most dishes. Slide the rack back in. Take an initial surface temp reading with your thermometer gun so you have a baseline.
Open the oven every 5 minutes to stir the beans and take a surface temperature reading with your thermometer gun. Log each reading — minute, bean temp, and oven setting. The time to reach target temperature doesn't matter, but a written record lets you replicate or adjust on your next batch.
When beans hit 200°F on the surface, lower the oven to 325°F. The beans are holding heat on their own now and you want to slow the rate of rise to avoid scorching the outside before the inside finishes.
At 240°F, reduce oven to 275°F. You're in the final stretch. Some beans will crack or pop at this stage — many won't. Don't rely on sound. Keep checking with the thermometer every few minutes.
250°F gives a lighter roast with more fruit and brightness. 265°F is a medium roast with deeper chocolate notes. Turn the oven off and remove the Pyrex dish. You can leave the beans in it — it will cool on its own.
Leave the beans uncovered at room temperature for at least 3 hours. The roast is still developing as the beans cool — this rest is part of the process. After 3 hours they're ready to crack, winnow, and grind.
Cacao Journal has a built-in oven roast profile logger. Log your temperature readings as you roast — minute, bean temp, and oven setting — and they're saved alongside your tasting notes so you can reference and refine them batch after batch. The more you experiment, the more useful it gets.
Log a Roast →