VERY rocky start with new Quest M3

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
Goldensncoffee
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#1: Post by Goldensncoffee »

I've been roasting on my modded P1 for about a year. I got a new Quest M3 for Christmas. :D I have Eric s thermocouples installed monitoring MET and BT (original location). This is hooked up to an Amprobe TMD-56 and into my Mac with Artisan. I've been roasting since 7:30 this am and wow I didn't think the learning curve would be this steep.

One thing I want to mention before I get to my questions is this: When my fan is set to "0" (also where the green mark is at 12:00) my fan is still spinning pretty good. (Enough to pull a slight vacuum still on the door above it when you open it). My fan will not stop. Is this normal?

I was really excited to try Jim Schulmans roasting guidelines. This did not go well at all for me. It was extremely difficult to get my BT probe up to 400F. I had the fan around 4ish (7amps) and couldn't get past 350. I then turned the fan down to like 1 and it eventually got up to 400. I didn't realize "0" on my fan is not "off" at this point. So I charge 150g of Brazil Minas Gerais. With the Amps at 5. Both doors open (No fan) it takes almost 5-6 mins to get to 300F BT. When I go to the next step which is closing the doors, turning fan/heat to max my MET goes above 525F. I've read 550 is danger zone? I cut the heat back there. Each phase took way longer than Jim's approximate times. (I wish I had logged my times better to give you all more info) 1C starts at 385F BT. This seems very low. Could it just be my BT probe reading differently than everyone elses?

I wanted to try Ultramatic Oranges recipe also as it looked pretty easy to follow.
I warmed up to 385F on the BT probe. ( Rear door open, 8.5 amps eventually got my BT probe up to 385.) It took about 15 minutes. MET was getting around 545 at some points and I did dial the heat back to 6.5-7 ish.
I charged 200g of Guatemala Patzun. I kept the rear door open to keep the fan at "0" and had my amps set to 8.5. 5:00 into the roast my BT was up to about 280. (Recipe says 4:20-4:30 I should see 300F) I decided to go to the next phase. I set the amps to 10 and fan on my "3". MET dropped to 450F when fan was turned on. MET did get back up in the 550 range and I turned the heat back a bit. I set the amps to 7.5 and turned the fan a little higher around 360F. I hit 1C at 12:00 with a BT of 385. I ended the roast at 16:00 @ 398 BT. The beans look decent actually...They may be drinkable. I seemed to stall a little after 1C.

Any advice on the MET's getting out of control? Is my fan normal? Is there anything you see here that is completely wrong that I'm doing?

I would greatly appreciate any info you all can give me
Thank you so much

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TomC
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#2: Post by TomC »

Your fan is normal.

You cant get that temp level in this roaster with the fan on that high during pre-heat, without a half hour or more warm up phase. You really don't need to have the fan on very high at all. I do it a little bit just to fine tune and somewhat homogenize the temps I'm looking for.

Keep in mind that Jim wrote his suggestions with the earliest iteration of the Quest M3, and it's fan ran differently for a given setting. What we used to have to do is use an alcohol pad and wipe off the little green or red mark on the side, and put our own, indicating at which setting the fan blades were actually rotating enough to blur the fins.

What you might want to try, if you're going to do the drying phase trick with the front loading door open to assess moisture and aroma, leave the door closed for the first minute and a half to two minutes, just to keep that much needed heat in. You wont see much in the way of steam for the first two minutes anyway, the cold beans are still slowly picking up heat. So there really isn't anything to assess physically for that first phase. You might as well leave the door down. When the beans hit north of 200, lift the door and start assessing. That retained heat will help you with a protracted drying phase.

And just for clarity sake, on your roaster, you can't shut the fan off, but there's no reason to have it on in the drying phase anyway, and it's moot if you have either door open.
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Goldensncoffee (original poster)
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#3: Post by Goldensncoffee (original poster) »

After reading your post Tom, I've had some successful roasts this afternoon! :D I'm so happy right now. Thank you
What I did is this:
It's Ultramatic Oranges recipe slightly modified with I believe was Marshalls recipe
Warm up with doors shut, 8.5-9A, Fan "0" (which is still on)
Get BT up to 410 with MET around 480
Charge 150g
Keep doors shut and maintain MET 480-500 through dry phase. 9A with fan on "0" (I did pop open the front door and sniffed at one point and it raised my MET?)
Dry ended around 4:30 at 310
I then set to 10A, Fan 3.
At 360F BT set Amps to 7.0 and Fan 4.5 to slow to 1C
At the start of 1C I then set the Fan to 6 (This works well, but why do I raise the fan spd? Increase convection?)
I hit 1C a little after 9:00
I took the roast to the first snaps of 2C and dropped at 413 @ 13:30. (I'm used to around 430F to hit 2C on my popper) I have to get used to the lower readings.
I would post my Artisan graph but I have no idea how to
All my roasts this afternoon look awesome. I did some to C+. I can't wait to try them all

kellzey
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#4: Post by kellzey »

Sounds like you're figuring it out...

I did Roast #5 on my Huky today and I'm still getting to know her and understand the power input and fan input and how it affects everything throughout the various stages.

I'm using Artisan too, but keep forgetting to click the various events... but the graphs and RoR are respectable and I'm getting a feel for what should be happening.

Post some pics of your beans!

For your Artisan graph (assuming you are using Windows version), Go to File (upper left) and then Save Graph and then choose a size and format.


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TomC
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#5: Post by TomC »

Goldensncoffee wrote:Keep doors shut and maintain MET 480-500 through dry phase. 9A with fan on "0" (I did pop open the front door and sniffed at one point and it raised my MET?)
as to the MET, I wouldn't worry about it, it's to be expected. opening the top chute essentially creates a chimney like effect. the heat is being drawn up around where the MET probe (erics's stock probe configuration and placement) and out of the roaster. Overall, micro-analyzing the MET is futile and not pertinent unless you're showing evidence of tipping/scorching, but i rarely encounter this as a problem, even early on learning how to use it, it's not very common.

The same can even be said for ET if your probe isn't placed dead on precisely where you've compared its reading to many countless roasts that you've ingrained in your memory where a specific coffee cracks at which time, etc. Micro-analyzing roast profiles early on in your learning experience will create a lot of frustration and confusion. Work on getting consistent, and being able to identify your results in the cup. it would help to do it blindly as well. Take plenty of notes. Trust your palate over a digital profile.

Goldensncoffee wrote: At the start of 1C I then set the Fan to 6 (This works well, but why do I raise the fan spd? Increase convection?)
Yes, increasing the fan speed increases convection. normally, i'm ramping at high amperage and fan speed up to 1Cs, then as i approach, say 20 degrees before i typically hit 1Cs, i throttle back on both, in order not to overshoot. it's important to be able to control your development time. too short of a development time mixed with too short of a total roast time is a guaranteed recipe for underdeveloped flavors.
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Goldensncoffee (original poster)
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#6: Post by Goldensncoffee (original poster) »

Heres a graph of the last roast which was taken to the first snaps of 2C



I drank a similar roast (same bean) this morning that was taken to C+ prepared in the Aeropress. WOW. It absolutely blew my mind. It's been a little while since I've roasted a Guatemalan but this was just fantastic.

Tom- I couldn't agree with you more as to trusting your taste over a graph. I started cupping my roasts about 5 months ago and it really improved my roasting skills on the P1...I should have started earlier.

Goldensncoffee (original poster)
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#7: Post by Goldensncoffee (original poster) »

TomC wrote:Yes, increasing the fan speed increases convection. normally, i'm ramping at high amperage and fan speed up to 1Cs, then as i approach, say 20 degrees before i typically hit 1Cs, i throttle back on both, in order not to overshoot. it's important to be able to control your development time. too short of a development time mixed with too short of a total roast time is a guaranteed recipe for underdeveloped flavors.
It seems that what I'm currently doing (I plan on trying a lot of different things) is the opposite of what you do. I'm ramping with high amperage and low fan speed...then as 1C approaches I'm decreasing amperage and increasing fan. I did this in the graph posted above. Is there a disadvantage to using a lower fan speed during ramp? I'm assuming your conduction/convection %' would be different. What about in the cup?

I noticed when I go from 7A/F4.5 (this is the setting to slow down for 1C) to increasing the fan to 6 upon the start of 1C, the beans really get-a-crackin' lol. So I'm actually increasing my heat at the start of 1C.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out

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another_jim
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#8: Post by another_jim »

Hi Jay,

Your final posted graph looks very much like the one I like to use; but your way of getting there is really different. I'm sorry my instructions did not work for you.

As Tom mentions, my fan is very different (it runs from completely off at 3 to max at 9). I can also get my ET up to 600 even with the fan running at max whether the roaster is empty or full. This means I can keep the ET steady and increase the heat flux and roasting speed by increasing the fan, and decrease heating flux and roast speed by reducing the fan while keeping the ET constant. In other words, I control the heat transfer to the beans both by source/sink temperature difference (ET - BT) and by the heat transfer rate (fan speed).

If you need to use your fan to control the ET, you cannot do this. This does not mean you get bad roasts, but it does close off some options (like fast, very low ET roasts, or slow, very high ET roasts). Mostly these options do not produce the greatest roasts in any case. So it's not much of a loss.

Adding insulation to the roaster will allow it to achieve higher ETs at higher fan speeds; and gives you these extra options.
Jim Schulman

Goldensncoffee (original poster)
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#9: Post by Goldensncoffee (original poster) »

another_jim wrote:Hi Jay,

Your final posted graph looks very much like the one I like to use; but your way of getting there is really different. I'm sorry my instructions did not work for you.
I knew your roaster was an earlier model with the thicker drum. I kind of figured it would be different on mine. Is there anything I'm doing that would cause a flaw in the cup? Or is the way of getting there (on the graph) not really important?
Adding insulation to the roaster will allow it to achieve higher ETs at higher fan speeds; and gives you these extra options.
I've been looking into the mods everyones doing...I definitely want to get way more experience on this thing before I do any mods. I tend to modify things too fast.

One other thing...I've been ending roasts with my nose a lot on the P1...which has been a success so far. Should I be smelling beans out of the trier or the top loading chute?

I really appreciate you guys helping me out

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TomC
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#10: Post by TomC »

The more sensitive your thermocouple probes are ( a good thing) the more error they're going to translate to your graph from using the tryer to smell the roasts. This is due to the fact that it's a small mass roaster with very dynamic temperatures and pulling the tryer out allows for heat to escape quickly. Plus, the tip of your thermocouple is likely very close in proximity to the tryer opening.

You can mitigate this two ways. One, roast larger batches (anything north of 225-250g or so) to help insure the BT probe is completely covered at all times with beans. Two, take advantage of the Quests design of having the fan right at the back. You can very accurately assess the aromatics of the roast from what's leaving the back of the it, while monitoring your color and bean expansion, etc from the sightglass.
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