One aspect that affects the strength of Portland cement mortars is the correction for moisture in the mix. To obtain the absorption value in fine aggregates, standard methods are used, one of them is ASTM C128 (standard), however; this method presents variability associated with the identification of the saturated surface dry state in the aggregate. This research focuses on comparing the water absorption of four types of Colombian aggregates obtained by two methods: the standard and an innovative instrumental and analytical technique with thermogravimetric balance of halogen light (TBHL), coupled to a software that reads the retained water data in real time. In addition, the strength of mortars designed based on moisture correction is evaluated. The absorption results show that, compared to the standard, the TBHL presents less dispersion in the results, not exceeding 10%, which indicates greater precision and less uncertainty. Additionally, resources are optimized through the implemen