What is coffee roasting color analysis?

Along with tasting your coffee, the most effective tool in analyzing the degree of roast, especially for consistency, is a color meter. This tool gives a specific number for the color that coffee is roasted to. Best practice for using this tool is to measure the color of the whole bean coffee and then measure the color of the same coffee, but ground. This gives you two numbers and shows a comparison of those numbers.

How do I use color analysis day to day?

For example (hypothetically, and keep in mind, the higher the number the lighter the roast:) My standard roast for breakfast blend is “58” for whole-bean and “67” for ground. I can give myself a +/- deviation of 1.5 points. If I measure a roast of my breakfast blend at “58” whole-bean but the ground measurement is “70,” I know that my roast went too quickly, the coffee did not roast through well enough meaning it was likely too fast of a roast. I may want to cup it now and make sure that the profile is not too far out of spec to sell the coffee as “Breakfast Blend.”

Having a reliable tool that gives you concrete, measured, clear information about your coffee is vitally important to running a consistent and reliable coffee roasting program. Find the right color meter to fit your needs below.