When I first started roasting as a business, I did a lot of research into what each roast level meant. There is no set standard is what I found out. It is very subjective. There are fancy, expensive tools that can measure roast level, but those are all well beyond my means. I found a chart that gave general temperature ranges for each roast level, but, once again, there is no absolute set standard that I could find.
My roaster has two great features. One is a temperature probe that shows the approximate temperature of the beans as they roast. The other is the heating element output temperature. This allows us to set our own standards for roasting.
Here are the predominantly accepted roast level temperature ranges along with our in-house standards:
| Roast Level | Low Temp | High Temp | Galaxy Girl Coffee Standard |
| Light | 400 F | 415 F | 408 F |
| Medium | 415 F | 435 F | 420 F |
| Medium Dark | 435 F | 445 F | 440 F |
| Dark | 445 F | 460 F | 460 F |
For some context, below are pictured the same beans roasted to three different roast levels. There is a visible difference between each roast level.
| Bali Light Roast 408F Bali Medium Roast 430F Bali Dark Roast 460F |
Being an artisanal, individual batch roaster means that we will roast beans to a specific temperature for our customers. The above pictured Bali roasted to 430F are a perfect example, as our standard medium roast is 420F.
The goal of the roast level is the chemical changes that happen at different temperatures. This is all individual to each bean, as they develop different flavors at different roasts. Keep that in mind when you start delving into your journey of what coffee roast level you prefer.
So, while we haven’t given a definitive answer to the question of roast level, we hope that we have helped you understand Galaxy Girl Coffee’s roast levels to better facilitate your coffee enjoyment.