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Back in the late 90's I bought one of these ceramic seed roasters http://www.ebay.c...ing+30-70g
that were being sold as a coffee roaster by an outfit in Tokyo called Tokyu Hands except mine has a wicker wrapping around the hollow handle instead of leather. I broke it out of retirement earlier this week to try it out with a couple of coffee's I've been getting so-so results in my other conventional roasters and was surprised by the nice results. I had only done 7 to 8 minute roasts back when I had used it years ago but decided to give longer roasts a try (12 min). With a low flame from my camp stove it's very easy to control by holding it near the flame during the first few minutes and then backing off to a couple of inches for the rest of the roast. By doing this I got around 5 minutes to yellow and 4 more to first crack and another 3 to finish.

It's pretty easy to use the roaster. Dump in 1 to 3 oz, shake the roaster back and forth over the flame to keep the beans stirred and observe the color and aroma changes through the roast and dump through the hollow handle into a cooling tray or onto a large flat cool surface for cool down. For what ever reason I'm getting better complexity and body with this little guy compared to any of my "higher tech" roasters.

I've come to the conclusion that it's possible to achieve remarkable roasts in very primitive roasting equipment and without any temperature sensors, PID or other controls.