Just out of curiosity, what's the biggest roast you've successfully done in your Quest M3. I gradually worked my way up to 1/2-pound, which it handles with ease. I get the impression that the machine has enough oomph to do more.

M -

The only comment I can add to your question is that my friend (close by) regularly roasts 1/2 lb in his Quest with good results. With a "grain of salt", he maintains MET at 500 F .

Nunas wrote:Just out of curiosity, what's the biggest roast you've successfully done in your Quest M3. I gradually worked my way up to 1/2-pound, which it handles with ease. I get the impression that the machine has enough oomph to do more.

250g to 275g or 8.8 oz to 9.7 oz

Too funny, Eric, if you are referring to me. I just jumped into the thread to indicate exactly this preference. I still do a lot of 180g charges if I want to roast a large number of batches in a session, but with a darkened drum (Flaxseed Oil in my case) and a high charge temp, the Quest has (just) enough giddy-up to give you some profiling options at the half-pound mark. Cheers,

erics wrote:M -

The only comment I can add to your question is that my friend (close by) regularly roasts 1/2 lb in his Quest with good results. With a "grain of salt", he maintains MET at 500 F .

With an insulated Quest, I roast 180 gr easily. It has still more power. It seems it can handle 200 gr8 as well. But never tried.

With an insulated Quest, I roast 180 gr easily. It has still more power. It seems it can handle 200 gr8 as well. But never tried.

Oh yes, I think much more than 200 grams. In my original post I mentioned that I routinely do a half pound. That is 227 grams. Clearly the roaster can do more and mine isn't insulated...just a stock M3-Mk2.

It sounds from the responses I've got so far that most off you are roasting well under a half pound. I find it works better at a half pound.

Another thought...theory. I think there is a rule of thumb for drum roasters that 10 cubic inch of drum per ounce. If that's so, then the Quest drum at about 90 cubic inches should only be able to do 9 ounces. Another rule of thumb is about 5000 BTU per pound. The Quest heater probably produces a tad more than 5000 BTU, so there should be enough heat to do a maximum of 1 pound. I know I can do more than a half pound, since I have to turn the heat down to get the right profile on a 1/2-pound roast. So, I'm guessing the roaster will top out at 9 to 10 ounces. Only a little experimentation will tell. If I ever get around to doing it, I'll report back.

I roast 200g regularly and it does it with ease. My drum is black and the shell is insulated.

I have been tempted to roast larger batches but never tried more than 205g with the Met at 365f (185c) using a 1st Gen Quest with the tryer on the left.

Just did two roasts of 240 (~8.5 oz) grams back-to-back. Worked fine, but I did notice that to keep the last half of the profile on the mark I had to use more heat than I'm used to. Interesting that a mere half ounce more made a difference Next week I'll try a bigger batch and see what happens.

Did a 300 g (10.5 oz) batch of Burman BCT Espresso blend today with no issues. In fact, I had to turn the heat down a bit as I mistakenly thought that 300g would be pushing the Quest to its limits. The roast is nice and even and I had no trouble making the Quest follow my background profile curve.