# TopCoffee and Quest M3S



## Turnado (Nov 6, 2020)

Hello All, has anyone ever dealt with TopCoffee in Austria? They are the distributor of Quest M3s but were very reluctant to sell me on of their roasters. Or maybe I phoned during the salesman's lunchtime....? As well, anyone roasted consistently on the Quest? Or should I bite the bullet and go straight to the Amazon Dalian (like Dave said). All feedback welcome


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

They're very different machines but if you've got the money and space...

Behmor have made a drum roaster called Jake but it doesn't seem to be available yet. Will probably be about as much as a bullet.


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## Turnado (Nov 6, 2020)

Rob1 said:


> They're very different machines but if you've got the money and space...
> 
> Behmor have made a drum roaster called Jake but it doesn't seem to be available yet. Will probably be about as much as a bullet.


 Thanks Rob, I see you have the Gene Cafe with dimmer mod. Would that be a sensible place to start for a coffee-roasting-newbie?


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

It was fine for me. If I were starting now I might be more inclined to get the Sandbox Smart R1 from BB with the cooling bin. They're forum advertisers and currently provide a good discount to members for pre-orders. I learned a lot using the gene, after adding a bean mass probe I learned even more about controlling the roast; how different power settings early affect the roast in the final stages. I also got frustrated with the limited control; the drum speed and fan speed can't be changed (and likely shouldn't be even if you mod it to allow such control) and my control over the heating element with the dimmer was inconsistent (I had to constantly adjust it to keep the wattage draw the same as it would drift around). I do have the parts to further mod my Gene with an ssr to control the heating element and something to take temp readings from the heater box so I can control the heating element that way via Artisan in the future. The question is when am I going to bother doing that....

For a newbie it seems obvious to just recommend the Sandbox BUT that's from my perspective, and I'm comfortable with the bean mass probe placement and my ability to judge roast progression and detect flaws by taste rather than rely wholly on the accuracy of the bean mass probe. For a newbie that wouldn't be the case and you might be scratching your head if things don't taste right but appear fine according to the software....that said if you get the Gene you have really no reference at all so after all this I'd say get the Sandbox. Greater control, smaller batch sizes, better form factor.

Or you might consider a Behmor but I can't remember anything about them and you'll have to do your own reading.


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## Beeroclock (Aug 10, 2015)

Turnado said:


> Hello All, has anyone ever dealt with TopCoffee in Austria? They are the distributor of Quest M3s but were very reluctant to sell me on of their roasters. Or maybe I phoned during the salesman's lunchtime....? As well, anyone roasted consistently on the Quest? Or should I bite the bullet and go straight to the Amazon Dalian (like Dave said). All feedback welcome


 If you want a Quest M3 - why don't you just contact them directly at

[email protected]

When I had one and ordered a new drum for it I spoke to Molly Yen.

I have to admit that I struggled with the Quest - but had an earlier version where the airflow was compromised and in all honesty had fallen pretty much in love with the Cormorant CR600 so my relationship with that roaster was short lived. However it did show me the path to understanding proper thermocouple placement and there are plenty of people who swear by them, pretty sure Winchester Roasters do or did their training courses on one of these, might be worth getting hold of them.

Do your research, there are lots of options out there at the moment.

The Sand box probe is not a bean mass probe - doesn't sit anywhere near a bean. Whether this matters to you I don't know.

I recently bought a Kaffelogic as part of the Beta program, having sold my Cormorant (I now have 1.5kg Golden GR1+) - I was looking for a sample roaster with accurate profiling capabilities. The obvious choice is the Ikawa pro V3 - but it's over £4K too much for me.

I've only had it for a week or so and am still learning the software, but can honestly say that by on my 5th roast, I'd already managed a result, I'd consider eminently drinkable (not the case when I started on the Quest). They have a relatively active community up and running with users exchanging profiles - one of which I used for an Ethiopian washed Limu WushWush (Tegu & Tula from Cafe Imports).









This was a user submitted profile. Profiles can also be exported as .csv files and imported into Artisan.

Cheers Phil


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