Thanks happy cat! I'll see if I can iron those out tonight. More graphs to come. Once I get this figured out, I plan to update the original post with my findings.

WEll,

After about 7 roasts, 3 of them in the trash, I'm getting pretty frustrated. I haven't had a good homeroasted cup in a while either.....

Tried to follow happycats instructions.....tough because of my alt BT probe, If it give it more heat in the middle im getting FC around 6 mins, roast smells smokey.

Tried following Jim S instructions...scorched and crazy graph.

Tried doing some of my own ideas.....meh

I just dont understand what is so different about my quest, and why it is so hard to get a good roast out of it. Hopefully I get this figured out before I throw in the towel.

Thanks everyone for all the help........

erikg wrote:
Here is my usual process on my 2014 Quest. Your mileage will likely vary. Before the 1st batch, I let the roaster warm up for about 30 minutes at 8 amps. I use a 150g charge at 8 amps, fan at 4 at about 420F BT, 500 MET with trap door open until drying ends around 320F on my BT probe. I close the trap door and crank the heat up to about 9.8 amps to bring MET back up above 500 at which point I drop the amps to 9.3. About 10-15F before 1st crack starts, I lower the heat to 9 amps. Then 45-60 secs into first crack, I start dropping the amps and eventually cut the heat completely to finish the roast. The quest's fan is a bit of a mystery to me, so I leave it at 4 on the dial. While there is always room for improvement, I have been very happy with the results in the cup. Below is a PNG roast I did recently that had pleasant acidity, tropical fruit flavors and a satisfying finish.

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Erik has a very similar process to the one I have been using.

One thing I would recommend to the Quest roasting community is to use a plug in, in-line digital Watt Meter, they are cheap these days. The advantage is that you can display Power consumption in Watts. This allows you to easily replicate roast profiles and make accurate adjustments during the roast process, reading the Amps on a Quest is not accurate and repeatable. The Watt meter also makes sharing information between users easier and takes into account varying line voltages 240V, 110V etc and any voltage fluctuations on the line.

I roast at 900W. My typical roast is 200g of green beans

I preheat the Quest for approx 20 min.

I load the beans at 200C/392F. I do vary this at times but with 200g and this charge temp I get repeatable results and 1C normally falls into the same time frame, if you plot over a previous roast template you will be amazed how easy it is to replicate a roast. Consistent roast power and bean charge weight are a key to repeating profiles. If you vary the charge temp it will vary the length of the roast based on running the same power setting and weight of beans.

I run the 900W from the beginning of the roast with the trap door open. The turn point will usually be at 1 min 22sec
At 150C/302F I close the trap door, fan setting 4. If you are running a MET probe you will see an immediate decline in temperature and MET will stabilise at 277C/530F
The power level setting stays constant. The BT is rising the RoR is declining.

The fan setting can be varied to suit your own roasting preferences. I have left on 4 throughout the roast and increased to full at 1C. I have also slowly increased it over the roast 6 at 6 min, 7 at 7 min, 8 at 8 min, full 9min

At around 193C/379F just ahead of anticipated 1C I cut back the power, as I roast outside it does vary with ambient temp. If it is 5C I might cut back to 820 - 850W if it is 30C ambient I might cut back to 775W.
Keep an eye on the RoR and BT and trim power to avoid either a stall or drop in BT or an increase in RoR
Following the above controls any uncontrolled rise in BT or RoR around 1C

Typically following this process you could expect to see 1C around 9min 30 sec +/-

I use Roast Logger software and use Rao % development as a guide along with monitoring the beans via the trier to decide when to drop the beans. Typically that would be in the range 18% to 21% Max which suits my preferences. I could use time as the reference but i find Rao is a great reference point.

Sometimes smoky notes come from burnt skins accumulating under the drum. Perhaps see if it needs cleaning?

Hey Adam, sorry to hear that. Just for clarification, I warm up the machine with trap door open and use the standard BT probe location, so it won't be an apples to apples comparison. Also, we may have different model quests (mine is 2014) as they made drum and other changes to the latest model.

Closely monitoring and adjusting your MET as necessary is crucial for a well executed roast. An MET near 550F will result in scorching the beans. On my machine, I try to keep it no higher than 530F and no lower than 500 after drying.

The learning curve is a little steep and really took me about 50 roasts to start getting better cups. What really upped my game was using the Rao approach. BT rate of rise should be declining throughout the roast, particularly after drying.

Like Beanz I also use Kill A Watt meter to adjust the quest power setting, outputting in amps. I roast in my garage and get line voltage variances as well depending on time of day and so I'll adjust the quest power dial as necessary to bring amps displayed on the kill a watt back in line with my target.

Thanks guys, I'll see if I can buy a kill a watt today, and I will try to follow your tips exactly and post the results. Thank you for the encouragement. I do about 4 roasts a night and cup in the morning. Still can't get away from tobacco flavors. I have vacuum the machine to get any chaff out of the drum, the smoke is coming from the coffee.

Okay, I got the Kill A Watt. At 0 amps, my watts are 36, at 5 amps 350 watts, at 7.5 amps 710 watts, and at max (my dial only shows 9.5) 1150 watts. Is that in line with what you guys see? Also, are you looking at the watts or are you looking the the Kill a Watts amps?

Another question, what is the purpose of leaving the trap door open during drying phase? That makes my MET sky rocket.

Hi Adam
It seems you are reading Amps from your Quest meter and Watts from the Kill a Watts. If I calculate back from your numbers I get what I consider would be incorrect line voltages Just focus on the digital Watts reading and make adjustments using the Quest control knob. It is important to use the Watts rather than Amps range on the Kill a Watt, it shows the power consumed by the roaster, fan current is negligible so what you see is the power you apply to the roast.

As the Quest is electric you need to think and act ahead of the roast readings. The electric elements take time to cool and heat when you change the settings. MET will let you see the temperature trending well before the bean temp will follow so if something is dropping or rising too fast you can correct from a MET reading

I leave the trap door open to minimise air flow and stabilise the bean temperature, at that point in the roast the beans do not scorch despite the higher MET. In the early roasts I kept it closed, the condensation in the chaff area was significant on the first roast before the metal heated up so it also helps keep the roaster cleaner and stops moisture running through to the electronic controls. Yes MET goes up but provided you are not running max power the elements seems to be fine. I run a 2011 roaster and I am still on the original elements

I ran a few roast this morning so these are results I graphed. I have just installed the new drum with perforated back so I am still experimenting. Quest M3 Mods

Hi Beanz,

Thanks for sharing your graphs and also the information about the watts.

A couple things I notice. If my amps are reading wrong then it does make it hard to compare what im doing to other peoples suggested amps. However, I think what you are saying is I should pay more attention to my MET rather then my amps. Also my plug is deep underneath the counter so its not very practical for me to look under there with a flash light everytime I change amps.

The good news is I feel confident I can control my MET (with the trap door closed, it will take some practice with it open).

One thing I notice is that everyones graphs seem to take MUCH longer to hit TP and to hit 300 degrees (f). Most of my TPs are around 30 seconds and also my 300 degress are less then 4 mins in. I think this is partially because of my alternate bean probe temp. Also I dont end up seeing my beans go yellow untill 320-330 degrees.

I calculated your graphs and saw that you charge at a BT of 410, and your MET is 590, and declines as you go, I'm assuming thats a 200g charge tho? but it does give u a nice declining ROR. What roast level are you going for. I dont think any of my roasts have had much sweetness. I can try some more roasts tonight.