Trjelenc wrote: So if an underdeveloped interior would imply not getting enough heat penetrated into the bean by drop, would the logic be that I'm managing to get heat into the interior too early and really cooking those interior sugars early on?

Cooking/caramelizing the sugars 'early on' implies that's happening in the presence of higher water content compared to later in the roast. Is that a good thing? Dropping the beans into a pre-heated chamber seems to imply 'yes' - but spending three minutes drying before (re)reaching browning temps seems to imply 'no'. I'm confused...

without a chemical analysis we'll probably never know, if someone with a brix refractometer could measure the sugar content in the 2/3 of the inside versus the let's say 1/3rd outside and compare with a 'normal' bean or the same bean by another roaster using the same profile we might know... tricky experiment if you ask me...

meanwhile, why not send a batch of greens and some roasted beans to a peer roaster and see what the results it.

The rate of heat transfer is proportional to the difference in temperature. So if you lower your charge temperature it should slow down the rate at which heat penetrates the bean. You'll have to change all the rest of your roast as well, of course.

Yeah that was one thing I was thinking about, slowing it down to provide more even heating. The other competing hypothesis I had was that a hotter charge and higher gas and therefore faster roast would drive the outside of the bean to a further degree of development and finish the roast before the inside has a chance to get to sit at whatever temperature may be developing the inside to that degree

To hot and you run into tipping problems.