In homebrewing beer one may use the style and appearance of big commercial
brewers as a great way to learn brew terminology and to communicate with
others. On the same vein, I had seen the 8 o'clock question a few days ago
and had gone off to do other things, but in the meanwhile had thought what a
good question it was. My guess is that the big roasters are very good at
roast color repeatability throughout the States, so if I want to describe my
roast I could use a commonly available commercial roaster's product to
compare it to and then anyone who wanted to know what I was saying in my
description need only buy and observe a bag of that coffee to know where I
was coming from... sort of the agtron system once removed.
Does anyone want to scope out a few bags of coffees of varying roast degree
by NATIONAL roasters, ones that we can all buy, and we can decide on names
we can give them or close agtron numbers... whatever... and then we can
compare across the miles, secure that we're at least in the same ballpark?
I'll look for a few this weekend and get back to you.
Whoever's idea this was, thanks very much!
Incidentally, I'm told that in my email decrying attachments, I sent out an
attachment! My bad, but that's my point... when one person sends out an
attachment, then as others reply it may very well propagate all unbeknownst
to the new senders... it is a bad idea and I strongly recommend against it.
Ted
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Simpson,
I've seen many posts about the need for a reference tool (other than
everybody owning the expensive Agtron color tiles).  The simplest I've seen
is referring to the 4 Agtron pics in the back of Kenneth Davids' book "Home
Coffee Roasting".  Most of my roasts are closer to the Agtron #45 color in
his book, but everyone doesn't own his book.  I really got a laugh from this
latest idea (no offense to anyone) of arriving at color comparison based
upon commercial roaster's colors/product.  I can see it now, "yes, I roasted
just shy of MillStones' hearty Columbian blend" or "I roasted it just until
I got to Starbucks Gazebo blend".  Lord, how we do seek a common, affordable
media to share roast color levels.
That's what I like about this hobby, profession, obsession, or whatever one
wants to call it.  It's easy enough to do that most anyone can achieve
wonderful results and it's mysterious enough to make us want to understand
it better.  I've got to admit, before I got into home roasting, I never gave
coffee, it's origins, or processing any thought whatsoever.  I just enjoyed
it and always will.  The more I dig into it, the more interesting it has
become and the more I find to learn.
Thanks for reminding me that there aren't any silly questions...they often
spark new thought.
Coffenut  :^)
<Snip>
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Yeah, I use those, too. I learned when home-brewing to appreciate the skills
the 'big dogs' bring to the table.  I may not like brand xxx beer, but it is
a lead pipe cinch that it is pretty much the same taste and color, gallon by
gallon across thousands of gallons and weeks and months of brewed batches.
You and I might not like that taste, but they have the lab equipment and
expertise to crank it out time after time. Ditto the big roasters, for all
sorts of reasons they have the QC facilities and automation and expertise to
crank out the same roast color (since that's what people notice) time after
time. So if I want to tell you what roast color (which is, remember, only a
useful datum when part of a much more complete description of process and
product) my latest harrar batch that tasted so good was, then belong able to
say "it's 8'oclock on the dot' would allow for comparison that we wouldn't
otherwise have. I wish SCAA would allow a cheap agtron tile set to be made,
say 50 bucks, that we OC hobbyists could afford to use, but that is probably
unlikely.
Ted

hey, if we are going to use a commercial product as a color chart then I'd
like to suggest beer rather than Starbucks as a guide.
Heck,  Classic Dark, Amber Dark, Black & Tan, Michelob Dark... and that's
just Anheuser
Pour me another pint Darlin, I've got a new batch on the barbe
Jack (Roasting with tumbleweeds in Texas)

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Maybe this is something I could include on the roast color web page I was
working on:http://sweetmarias.com/roasted.pict-guide.htmlTom
                  "Great coffee comes from tiny roasters"
           Sweet Maria's Home Coffee Roasting  -  Tom & Maria
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Tom, I find the recent addition to Sweetmarias home page
(/roasted.pict-guide.html) most useful, and I look forward to its refinements.
This is something I, for one, have long needed.  Thanks a lot!  I presume
someone has pointed out already that the order of the pictures needs to be
rearranged; i.e., surely the 2nd picture from the top should come later in the
roast?  And among the typos, one might mislead: in City Roast "Not the slightly
rough texture the coffee surface, and how it is crazed  with darker lines."
should read "Note the slightly..."
Tom & Maria wrote:
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Good suggestion as brewing malts are rated in degrees Lovibond,Pilsner
Urquell is I believe 4-5 degrees Lovibond,Crystal & Carastan malt 20-30
degrees, all the way to Patent Black malt which is __? Can't remember as
I'm just going from memory.I believe the color range chart is in Charlie
Papazian's homebrewing book The Complete Joy of Homebrewing,but no
actual color range pictures as in the Agtron color tiles. Regards,Craig
{;-)
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