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I just started roasting around last October. I started with a Hottop 2k+ and used Artisan the entire time. (The ability to use Artisan with an off-the-shelf roaster was big for me.) It's been quite a journey. I still have a way to go, but I've finally been able to get some decent roasts.

I tried correlating the Hottop ET with the roast level temperatures using Sweet Maria's roast card. I had trouble finding correlation. It did give a good idea of the temperature differences of the different roast levels. Even though the roast levels are ET, the delta's seem to apply to BT for me. (I drop based on BT, not ET)

I started doing 120g roasts to get more tests out of a pound, but now only do around 220g. I started with the lower charge temperature and tried some of the profiles that Roast Rebels have on their site. I've since moved to higher charge temperature.

I've found that first crack is between 355 and 365 BT. To keep from getting the "flick" I usually add air right before first crack and back off right after.

I've also found that it takes a little over a minute to see the effect of cutting back heat. It takes a couple routes to help figure out the timing to get what you want based on the bean.

I have two roast profiles below. They are both Ethiopia Yebuna Terara SWP from SM. (My wife's favorite.) She rated the first one as an "ehhh". The second was "the best cup of coffee I've had". It's surprising to me the major difference the RoR appears to make.

One of the other differences between the "not good" and the "good" is that I've started using Alarms to drive the roasts on the "good" roate. I've also started using backgrounds so that I can see the last roast and compare where I'm at. (In the good roast at around 3 minutes you see the air go up and down. I mistakenly thought I could align the background with the arrow keys.)

I still have a lot to learn and would appreciate any thoughts/feedback, but I didn't find a lot of profiles for Hottops so I thought these might help.

A couple other notes:
- Right now I only do the soak on SWP and sometimes dry process
- I tend to charge Decaf and Dry process at around 30F less than normal high altitude
- I typically shoot for a 5m to 5:30m dry end (going just by 300F rather than look/smell)

I'm starting to get better roasts, so it's progress.