beanscoffee
I bought these coffee beans in Bali. I tried to grind them up to make a cup of coffee this morning, but they didn't grind properly, leaving lots of big chunks. It was more like grinding peanuts than coffee. The coffee didn't taste or smell anything like coffee either, and it was a really weak brown colour.
I'm assuming that I've gone and bought unroasted beans (although it didn't say anything about that on the pack). Is this the case?
You do want a coarse grind for french press coffee. The key is letting the coffee steep for long enough to make a strong brew. I have good results with a 5 minute steep time. Be sure to use a timer, and compare different times to find the optimal brew. As a general rule, if you are at altitude, then you need to add time because boiling water is cooler. (Note that I am at 5000ft, so 5 minutes may be too long for you.)
Below is a picture of the coffee chunks in a coarse grind on top of a US 5 cent coin (21.21 mm in diameter).
The picture is from this article.
EDIT: The reason to use a coarse grind for a french press is that finer grinds will get stuck in the filter and/or push their way through. This has three potential problems: 1) it will be harder to press down the filter, possibly leading to spillage or breakage; 2) your coffee will have grinds in it; 3) the coffee may become bitter, as the finer grinds that passed through the filter remain in contact with the coffee for too long.
You don't need a brand for brewed chocolate. You just take cocoa powder (which is ground cocoa beans minus most of their fat) and put it into boiling water. You don't even need to strain. But I prefer to make mine with milk (btw, I sometimes brew coffee in milk too).
Solid candy from coffee is something else. What you call "coffee butter" is, in fact, coffee oil at room temperature. I can't find information about the breakdown of the coffee beans, but I am not sure if they have the starch content of cocoa beans (which helps hold a chocolate bar together). Add to this the potential for a heart attack inducing amount of caffeine per bar of caffeeolate and you see why this isn't commonplace.
I guess that the industry today would find ways around these problems. You can hydrogenize the oil (although I don't think it would attain the smooth texture of tempered chocolate, chocolate butter has some very special crystallization properties which allow a chocolate bar to have a silky but hard texture. It will be just grainy) and you can decaffeinate the whole thing, and then mix it with some starch to thicken it, and as much sugar as there is in milk chocolate to counter the higher bitterness of coffee.
But this will be as distant from real rich-flavoured coffee as 39 cent discounter chocolate bars are from real chocolate. There won't be an equivalent of premium dark chocolate (which is the one that tastes of cocoa beans instead of sugar).
If you love coffee so much that you want to try a coffeeolate bar, you are better off making coffee flavoured chocolate. If you want the least taste mix, start with a white chocolate bar. The easiest way would be to melt it and mix in a very small amount of cream with lots of instant coffee solved into it, but the taste will be bound by the instant coffee quality. The other way would be to brew the coffee powder in cream, very concentrated (more than an espresso) and add it to the melted chocolate. You'll have to work at chocolate candy making temperatures (30°C to 32°C), if you overheat, you'll have to retemper the chocolate.
Best Answer
Yes, they are not roasted. I think you can do this in a normal oven, but I have never done it myself so I cannot advice you on temperatures etc.