The hot torsion simulator has been extensively used as a means to understand the microstructure evolutionof different steel grades during hot rolling. The test is suitable to simulate ‘real’ industrial schedules aswell as schedules designed to obtain information regarding the intrinsic properties of the materials. For example,it is common to apply ‘average’ schedules, in which deformation per pass, interpass time, strain rateand cooling rate are kept constant, to determine the characteristic temperatures Ar3, Ar1 and Tnr (start andfinish of the austenite transformation and no recrystallization temperatures) of steels. In this work, both a‘real’ schedule simulating a rolling schedule in a reversing mill and an ‘average’ schedule were applied to aseries of Ti and Nb microalloyed steels. In general, the steels exhibited somewhat different behaviours forthe different thermomechanical schedules, e.g. the pancaking temperature region is easily detectable afteran ‘average’ schedule, while for the ‘real’ schedule some softening can be detected in the pancaking region,which is strongly dependent on the strain and interpass time. Moreover, the paper analyzes a new approachto stress-strain curves, which is used to better understand the sequence of events which take place duringrolling and their dependence on rolling parameters.