Guide to Coffee Roast Profiles

Roast profiles have a bit of a reputation when it comes to coffee. There are coffee drinkers who feel strongly that specialty coffee can only be a light roast coffee or that espresso is meant for dark roasts. The truth is that there are excellent coffees roasted across the spectrum and understanding the impact roast levels have on coffee and what you can do to your brew of coffees at different levels will help you to bring out the qualities you love most in your coffees.

Basics of Coffee Roasting

Before you can understand the different roast levels, you need a basic understanding of how coffee is roasted. Roasters purchase green coffee beans that have been grown and processed from coffee farmers and producers throughout the coffee belt of the world. Green coffee beans are very dense, smell a bit grassy or vegetal, and don't have appealing flavor qualities. It is the roasting of the beans that pulls out the fragrance, aromas, and flavor that we love about coffee. The roasting process - in addition to the type of bean, origin, processing method, etc. - plays a massive role in the experience you will have drinking a coffee.

Roasters build roast profiles, or recipes, adjusted highlight qualities in the beans they are roasting. Roasting machines heat green coffee beans at a high temperature and keep the beans moving throughout the entire roast process to ensure evenness in the roast level for all beans. Roasters measure the heat, speed, and airflow in the roaster in order to manipulate the roast level and flavor. Moisture is released from the beans and the green color of the beans slowly fades to brown as the beans get hot. At a certain point, the beans will audibly crack (something which they will do once more) which is commonly referred to as "first crack". Shortly after the first crack is a common point to remove the beans from the heat of the roaster for lighter roasted coffees. Darker roasts may go all the way to the next crack, which you could probably guess is referred to as "second crack". Going much beyond the second crack of the roasting process can become close to burning the coffee beans.

Roast Labels

You might have noticed that there are several different ways that roasters will label a coffee's roast. The importance of any of these labels are really what the roasters want to convey of the coffee to you as a coffee drinker. The image below aligns some common descriptors with approximate "standard" roast levels.

coffee beans at each roast profile with descriptors Common descriptors for approximate roast profiles. Original photo by Ochir-Erdene Oyunmedeg.

Brewing Tips

Brewing a light vs. a dark roasted coffee won't be wildly different; however, you might want to follow some of these guidelines when brewing one or the other.

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Freshness

The freshness of your beans matters, but can beans be too fresh? They kind of can. After completing the roasting process, coffee beans are still full of CO2. Roaster's let beans go through a degassing process by letting them rest for a couple of days before grinding and brewing. The degassing process lets some of that CO2 escape the beans which helps prevent the gas from causing uneven extraction.

Fresh bag of coffee beans Ah, the lovely fragrance of a fresh bag of coffee beans. Because lighter roasts go through a shorter roasting process, the beans are more intact and degassing will take longer while darker roasters will degass more quickly. The ideal degassing period is somewhere around 24-72 hours across roast levels.

This may also say something about how long a lighter vs. a darker roast may stay "fresh", but there are many other environmental factors that are in play. Generally speaking, you may find that light roasts keep their freshness a bit longer.

Grind Size

If you use a hand grinder, you may notice that darker roasted beans have a much softer feel to them and you can bust through the grind much quicker. This is because they were broken down more during the roasting process and more gas was released as compared to a light roast.

Lighter beans are much less porous and solid which means that you need to break them down more in the grind and a finer grind size will be needed to extract flavor from the beans.

Fellow Ode coffee grinder Dial in grind size with the Fellow Ode for any roast. Check out our Guide to Grind Sizes and take the roast level into consideration when selecting the right size for your brew method.

Water Temperature

Water temperature greatly impacts the solvency of the coffee grounds you are brewing. The hotter the water, the more solvent the grounds will be and the higher the extraction will be. Beans have less solubles the longer they are roasted, so the ideal temperature range will be impacted by the roast level. The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) suggests the optimal brewing temperature to be between 195°F (90°C) and 205°F (96°C).

Fellow Stagg coffee kettle temperature control The Fellow Stagg kettle gives you precise temperature control. As darker roasters have been roasted longer, they have less solubles and higher temperatures can lead to over-extraction and undesirable bitterness. Using a water temperature as low as 180°F (82°C) will help highlight the sweeter notes of the coffee.

When it comes to lighter roasts, higher temperatures are better for exacting the flavors that haven't been broken down during roasting. Using a water temperature up to 208°F (98°C) can help produce a well balanced cup without overpowering acidity.