Coffee Data Science
Moisture Effects: Water Added to Coffee Beans
Let it rain!
I have been adding 4% water to my roasts every since discovering the benefits of moisture to degassing, extraction, and taste. For a large selection of roasts (144 in total), I have collected metrics pre and post moisture addition, and I was curious to see how coffees changed with the addition to moisture.
Using the DiFluid Omix, I collected data on:
- Density
- Moisture
- Water Activity
- Coffee Color
I expected some changes in density, and I did see an addition in density except for a few denser roasts where I didn’t have much data.
Moisture increased post roast, but not as much as was added. I put a black line to indicate what I had expected after adding water. However, the measurement was much lower, and this follows previous data I have collected on the topic.
Water activity was flat and unchanging indicating it does not correlate to the addition of water.
Water color had a slight shift upwards or lighter in color. That’s interesting, and I don’t have a good answer as to why. I think having ground coffee color would help in this case because there is some noise in whole bean color, but I don’t have that data.
Based on these results, it seems I could stop measuring these metrics after I add water because water doesn’t affect the metrics much.
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Further readings of mine:
My Second Book: Advanced Espresso
My First Book: Engineering Better Espresso
