#questm3

[baristamaniac]

Roasting up a new natural Guatemala Huehuetenango for the second time. Brewed this on a Chemex and roasted it super light. . Flavor Notes: Grape Jelly Caramel Chocolate. . . . #roaster #roasting #questm3 #homeroaster #guatemala #huehuetenango #coffee #greencoffee #smallbatch #coffeetime #coffeelover #coffeelovers #wheaton #illinois #home #sunday (at Wheaton, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1mqcHCBrZN/?igshid=cxzk1jxt35b6

[linyijen]

週日連烘三鍋，忙著驚嘆新豆子烘好後的強烈麻油味忘記拍照，只好偷個舊照片來紀念一下。 #coffee #coffeeholic #coffeelover #coffeeaddict #coffeetime #homeroasting #homeroastedcoffee #questm3 #questm6 #questm3roaster #homeespresso #pourover #pourovercoffee https://www.instagram.com/p/CjP_lk3hnnI/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mariaestherlopezthome]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 𝐌𝐚𝐫í𝐚 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 Thome-López (@melopezc)

Good job Bae for filming while in class, with #djiosmo+ #iphone And thanks to @andresanayago for doing what he does...creating incredible stories and vids! You are the best broh! This was my last SCA Roast Intermediate Course. We had lots of fun, learning and cupping! We roast in sample roaster #QuestM3 and Production Roaster @diedrichroasters This was a super nice group of students and I had a wonderful time sharing and spending teaching time with them! Hope to see all of you soon, keep the flame alive🔥 (en Café Registrado) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpStpTEDvYv/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=8bo6c87yufcf

[cafenacozinha]

Mestres torrando no Quest M3. #cafenacozinha #torrafresca #torra #roasting #Quest #questm3 #cafemumu (em CAFE MUMU)

[no-stream]

hot & fast roasting: where I am now with the Quest M3

[example profile: a washed Yirg from a few weeks ago, slightly cooler charge by my norms since it was dry; 12.13% weight loss]

This’ll be pretty brief. I just want to give an overview of how I’m roasting now on the Quest M3. I’m quite happy with it, so I haven’t been posting about roast profiling as much. I’m experimenting with some pretty wild stuff, but this is my go-to, my baseline, which I’m evaluating other approaches versus.

I charge quite hot. BT and MET both read in the 420-480F range, depending on coffee processing, freshness, density (elevation, variety), and so on. I use plenty of air to heat the roaster so that it’s retaining as much heat as possible at a given temperature. The light weight of the Quest means using thermal momentum isn’t as easy as with a heavier roaster, a major reason why my next roaster won’t weigh less than 200 pounds.

Edit: I charge with 150.0 grams. This is basically 1/3 lb., which means I get three roasts out of Sweet Maria’s 1 lb. bags.

I start with substantial heat - typically around 7-8 out of a maximum of 10 amps. I leave fan at a steady value between 4 and 6; please don’t just translate this value because the Quest has a number of fan circuitry revisions. Ideal fan varies depending on just how aggressive I’m being with a coffee and how important its aromatics are to me. For instance, when working with a washed Yirg from Coffeeshrub, I preferred a bit slower ramp (around 3:45, developing complex floral aromatics) with a bit less fan (better preserving the aromatics).

Near end of dry (around 3:30-4:00), I tend to increase heat slightly but not so much as to increase rate of rise (RoR). I typically keep MET around 490-495 through ramp to achieve a 3:15-3:45 ramp (dependent on the coffee). 

I enter first crack at around 490 MET and use plenty of amperage to avoid a dropping RoR at 1Cs (endothermic flash). After the endothermic flash, I reduce power gradually and drop with 20% development time, typically around 1:45. I consider achieving a declining RoR through first crack incredibly important in order to maximize sweetness and minimize baked flavors. I tend to drop at 400-408 on my BT thermocouple - around 15-30F past 1Cs, depending on the coffee. Lower temps can be nice for really delicate coffees (i.e. washed Yirgacheffes) and slightly higher ones for roasts primarily intended for espresso, to maximize solubility.

I end up with a coffee that’s really sweet, pretty bright, aromatic, and soluble for both drip and espresso purposes.

[another profile; a Rwandan coffee (Karongi Gitesi) primarily intended for espresso; it was quite fresh and tolerated the hot charge well]

full-resolution images for reference:

http://imgur.com/qiP3ItS,KA4sXpl

[zhouyingmingtw]

Stove top roasting #questm3 #madeintaiwan

[baristamaniac]

New samples for releasing moisture and caramelizing seeds. . . . . #coffee #roaster #samples #allycoffee #questm3 #home #coffeetime #coffeelover #baristalife #barista #chicago #illinois #wheaton #indiana #wisconsin #michigan #roasting (at Wheaton, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/BvnPMKihYN_/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=tpvd7p8tnlv9

[linyijen]

#homeroastedcoffee #homeespresso #coffee #coffeeholic #1zpresso #aeropress #questm3 #questm6 #questroaster #homemadecoffee #coffeetime #coffeelover #コーヒー好き https://www.instagram.com/p/CdDAsWDB91R/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[baristamaniac]

I’m sorry to say this but I haven’t cleaned my Quest M3 since I got it. Honestly.... I was scared to take it apart because of too many screws and parts. What began at 10am just ended now at 12pm. My gosh the metal pieces inside and out were charred. Note to self, don’t let this happen again. The roaster life! Bean there, done that! . . . #questm3 #roaster #electric #home #homebarista #parts #greencoffee #machine #coffee #coffeetime #coffeelover #barista #chicago #cleaning #clean #wednesday #coffeegram #instacoffee #coffeeroaster (at Countryside, Illinois)

[baristamaniac]

Just got home and received my latest specialty green coffee from @labodegacoffee Sumatra Bergandal Farm. Gayo, Aceh. Flavor notes of, Grapefruit & Bakers Choc. #coffee #specialtycoffee #green #roasting #barista #questm3 #chicago #coffeetime #home #homeroaster #instacoffee #coffeegram #california #lasvegas #newyork #tuesday (at Woodridge, Illinois)

[baristamaniac]

Roasting up an Ethiopia Rophi from @bodhileafcoffee @redbeardcoffeetraders on my #questm3 right now. Region: Sidamo Varietal: Heirloom Process: Natural Elevation: 1900-2000 meters Flavor Notes: Strawberry and caramel. . . . #coffee #roasting #bodhi #greencoffee #cali #california #chicago #redbeard #coffeelover #homeroaster #home #coffeeholic #coffeegram #coffeebean #coffeetime #company #traders #barista #roasting (at Schaumburg, Illinois)

[baristamaniac]

About to roast an extremely high quality and much appreciated microlot from the farm of @gracianocruz17 Cruz's offering is a sundried natural coffee and offer such unique and exotic taste. This is my only sample and wish I had more. I met Graciano in Chicago at @buzzkillerespresso and wish I had a clue who he was back then. #coffee #greencoffee #microlot #coffeefarm #gracianocruz #specialtycoffee #rare #gourmet #offering #roasting #questm3 #roast #chicago #homeroasting #home

[mariaestherlopezthome]

Last one for today....roasting! #questM3 #DOR #profiles #Acaia (en Buenos Aires, Argentina)

[no-stream]

a reminder: your thermocouples are lying.

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Basically, I’d like to examine a roast of mine as a reminder that thermocouples are physical objects that measure abstractions, and if you don’t remember that, you’ll wind up screwing up your roasts.

As a refresher, thermocouples are basically a couple strips of metal separated by a certain distance. Their length changes in a predictable fashion as temperature fluctuates, and they transmit a varying voltage to your datalogger. Your datalogger interprets these voltages and gives you temperatures. If your thermocouple is covered by some sort of sheath, there’s a non-trivial lag time between temperature changes and your thermocouple - in the center of the sheath - being affected. 

So let’s look at a roast. It’s a washed Gedeo Yirgacheffe in my Quest M3. The probes are MET and BT, and there’s BT RoR in light blue. My newer curves have power and fan annotations, but this one doesn’t. 

When I finished this roast, I thought it looked pretty clean. I charged hot and moved through drying quickly, lingered in ramp a bit to try to bring out the florals, and spent 20% of the roast in development, with a declining RoR in that phase of the roast. This roast was one of a series on the effect of airflow, where I would maintain constant airflow through most of the roast and max out airflow in development. 

When I tasted this, I was really surprised. It was baked, and pretty obviously so, at least to me. And I think the clue is right at the start of the development phase. We can see that as I turned up the fan quite aggressively, MET dropped rapidly. The BT probe is pretty thick and doesn’t show a dramatic effect here, and RoR - remember that RoR displays are averaged, since taking rolling averages of slope is a noisy process - doesn’t show anything either. 

So what I realized happened is pretty simple. The fan increase rapidly distributed a bunch of heat from the heating element. The beans quickly gained a bunch of heat, so the RoR of the beans’ actual internal temperatures increased. (Imagine if we could place a perfectly responsive, massless thermocouple inside an actual bean - it would register an increased RoR.)

The bean temp probe is thick and doesn’t immediately register this change, so we don’t see it on the graph. We just have a baked roast and have to figure out why.

So the two take-aways are

1) Remember your thermocouples are not perfect measurements of temperature.

and

2) Please try to source thin, lightweight thermocouples and place them precisely.

I’m in the process of adding a second BT probe to my Quest that will be quite a bit more responsive. TP times are primarily a thermocouple artifact and can be used as an approximation of thermocouple responsiveness. Currently, I get TP around 1:25-1:30. Hopefully, my new probe will register it around 45 seconds. 

[no-stream]

thinking about Nordic-style roasts...

[quest m3, front]

(This post is adapted from a few on home-barista.)

I managed to snag a used Quest M3 (a ~150g sample roaster) around a month ago. The probes are bean temp and max environmental temp.  To calibrate your internal thermometer, my roaster reaches first crack (1C) at 379-383 for high-grown, washed coffees and is generally quite similar to other EricS probe Quest M3's in terms of readouts. So adjust these temperatures in your mind depending on whatever your thermocouples tend to read at 1Cs.

[example 1 - slow-start, fast-finish]

Here's the first example. This is a slow-start, fast-finish roast. I hoped that by dragging out drying, I could get a quick development period. Unfortunately, this roast turned out horrendously underdeveloped. Now there is certainly a possibility that a 20% development ratio would yield something not-underdeveloped, but why would I bother dragging out drying and thus sacrificing acidity if I don't have to? (I'm using this for brewed coffee and thus want to maximize acidity.)

[example 2 - fast-start, slow-finish]

Here's a contrasting example. I pushed to 1c quite quickly and gave it just under 20% development time. It was properly developed - just barely. In the cup, it tasted like dilute apple juice. But it was the proof of concept I was looking for.

[example 3 - baseline hot-and-fast profile]

And, finally, here's my new baseline roast. Fast dry, fast ramp with plenty of air, 20% development time. This profile results in around 13.3%-14% weight loss. In the cup, it's clean, sweet, bright, palate-filling, and caramelly without overwhelming the fruit. The profile is extremely simple. Start with low air and high power, then max out power and increase air to high during ramp, then lower power a bit during 1C. I maintained MET near 500F, the approximate scorching temp in my roaster, for drying and ramp and reduced it as much as I could get away with during 1C to yield a 20% development ratio. The biggest difference between this profile and a typical third-wave profile is not how light I drop (though I do drop a couple degrees lighter) but how quickly I get there. This profile isn't perfect, but I think it's a good baseline. 

So my conclusions are that I agree with Rao's 20% development time suggestion, and I also agree with declining rate-of-rise. Obviously, these are tentative thoughts, but I'm consistently preferring my declining rate-of-rise roasts to my more linear ones. And I'm having better results taking 20% of roast time for development than trying to extend other parts of the roast and then spend ~15% of the roast on development. I was suspicious of Rao's claim that the way to resolve underdeveloped flavors is to apply heat earlier and more aggressively rather than to drag out the roast... but so far he seems to be absolutely correct. It's unintuitive that roasting faster can actually produce better development, but it seems to be the case.

Limitations: these profiles are with different coffees, on different days. I'm not trying to say slow-start-fast-finish profiles aren't viable, just that I haven't had much luck with them. And I've only been using my M3 for a month or so, so I will be tweaking. I just hope this provides some basic ideas to those hoping to explore Nordic-style fast-and-light profiles.

All three roasts were washed, high-grown, Latin American coffees from Sweet Maria's. The first roast used their Rosma Huehue Guatemala, the second their Huila Colombia, and the third their Costanza y Lopez Guatemala. When experimenting on roast details, I generally stick to high-grown, washed Latin American coffees since I want to avoid the "wilder" characteristics of African coffees coloring my judgments - even though I tend to prefer them. 

Larger profiles for your viewing pleasure: http://imgur.com/a/viy9E

[zhouyingmingtw]

After a long shipping… here it is #questm3 #taiwan