CC, yes I go by soft, medium or hard bean guidelines as well as where I am taking the roast level. Going into second crack off sets much need for a long drying phase but roasting city and city+ I may spend 6-7 minutes getting past the drying phase. If I am roasting a city+ for espresso I try and get 5 minutes from start of first to finish and this can take up to 3 roasts to get the bean to do what I want. I have never thought about keeping each phase balanced although I have done this with roasts before since that is just how it worked out. For Drip I like around 3 minutes from start of first to finish no matter what roast level.

I am no expert and most of my roasting is trying something a little different then always trying to do it the same way. I have roasted a few hundred pounds of greens and I have a decent idea of what I want to do before I start a roast and then I try to get the results I am aiming for then I change something to see what that does. I really like the control a HT B gives and I utilize it. If you have not read or tried before to roast less then 200g of beans in the HT give it a try. You don't need full heat when doing these smaller batches and you have very good control over the roast plus you can get 15 roasts out of a 5lb bag when doing 150g batches.