Roast Color Measurement at the German 2016 SCAE roastmaster championship

Every selected roasted batch at this week's German SCAE Röstmeisterschaft was weighed and then measured for roast color, using precise digital scales, a Compak E8 "red speed" grinder at finest setting, a heavy flat pencil tamper and a Tonino roast color meter.

As a member of the 'timing, weight and measurement team' I could take a few pictures of the procedure.

During one round the competing roasters could each roast two batches and then decide which one to offer for judgement. First the selected batch (cooled down) was weighed, then a sample was taken and poured into the empty grinder funnel. For five seconds the grinder was run to make sure any remains of the previous batch was out, then for nine seconds the grinder worked to get a mound of very fine grinds into the test basket.

Three minutes were set on a timer to let the grinds cool down after grinding, then the puck was repeatedly pressed and polished using the tamper and in between tamps any remaining dus om the coffee puck was blown off.

The calibrated Tonino device was then used to measure the roast color several times, making sure the results were consistent.  Then, weight and color data were handed to the jury.

The remaining volume of the batch was subsequently sealed in bags, marked, and set to rest.

The next morning, these batches were cupped and graded.

Here are a few pictures of the color measurement:

One of the roast profiles immediately post roast (logged using Artisan)

Weighing the batch, supervised by an official

Writing down the weight

Preparing the grinding, first flushing the Compak E8 grinder

 

Letting the grinds cool down for 3 minutes

Tamping very firm, creating a perfectly flat puck surface to measure

Calibrating the Tonino device

Measuring the puck color several times on different spots of the puck

PS this from Marko Luther:

Here is my summary of this years local roasting competition

https://artisan-roasterscope.blogspot.de/2016/10/die-zweite-deutsche-scae.html

that links to the Artisan profiles submitted by the 10 competitors

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4HTX5wS3NB2QWI1dGJvUzBPYVE (GoogleDrive)

The short report also links to the Roast Ranking table produced by Artisan

http://my-tonino.com/2016-10-05_07-German_Roasting_Competition/RoastRanking.html

Note that this table is sortable by clicking on the column headers.