Coffee Data Science
Coffee Color: Whole Bean vs Grounds
Another look color inside and out
Over the past two month, I have been aggressively roasting and measuring coffee bean color with three devices. All of these devices measure whole bean color as well as ground coffee color. So I decided to compare the modalities across devices and coffee roasts.
Equipment
The three devices have a color calibration plate, but the Syncfo has two calibration plates. The Syncfo has two sides to each plate. One plate is used for the chamber measurement, and another one for a larger plate.
The Syncfo 4in1 analyzes coffee color, weight, density, and moisture. It is considered a standard for SCA, so I’m going to assume it to be the most accurate. This is a large assumption, and maybe we can challenge that some time later.
The DiFluid Omni gives a color histogram as well as the average color. The Syncfo only gives one color value. The Omni can do particle analysis as well, which is an added bonus.
Lebrew gives only one color measurement, but it has the hardware to do similar functions as the Omni.
Data Collection
To get a fair comparison, I placed Omni and Lebrew on top of the sample of the Syncfo because the movement of the beans is enough to cause a large sample variance artificially.
First, I compared the Syncfo in the chamber vs the base plate. These are two separately calibrated modalities for measuring color.
Now let’s compare whole bean across the 3 variants. I assume Syncfo is the groundtruth because it is SCA approved.
Looking at ground coffee color, the trends are similar to whole bean.
I can compare grounds color to whole bean, and all three have a similar, overlapping trend. I didn’t quite expect it.
Coffee color measurement is a great tool, and all of these devices work well compared to themselves. I don’t think situations arise too often where we need these devices calibrated to one another because color scoring is done mainly for the roaster.
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Further readings of mine:
My Second Book: Advanced Espresso
My First Book: Engineering Better Espresso
