Finally tried roasting with a simple mesh colander over charcoal after grilling steak. It sure is a work out for the arms. Just like the old days; can't be simpler.

Coffee: Fazenda Unknown
Heat Source: Lump charcoal, infrared, convection, conduction
Weight of coffee: Handful
Thermometry: My hands
Total roast time: Somewhere around 12 minutes, 2 minutes into first crack

Nice! Looks great...so hows it taste?

I'm curious to know how it tastes too.

Doesn't look too bad at all. Most results end up quite a bit darker than that. Definitely let us know what you think of it.

Henry:

Did any hickory or mesquite flavor get into your roast? A cooking method you didn't list is "smoked."

The charcoal roasted coffee actually smelled and tasted decent, and better than expected. After the initial unknown coffee, I roasted some Gedeo Worka, which I had been roasting the past year. The dry aroma actually had fruit, which persisted into the wet aroma. The acidity was muted but preserved. The body was fuller than the typical Mini 500 roast.

There was only enough for two drinks (v60, 12g coffee/200g water), so the handful of green coffee yielded about 25 grams after roasting.

This is a fine method for observing the changes of various roasting stages. I probably will use a mesh over gas stove to show the uninitiated how easy it is to roast coffee.

You may pick up some off flavors roasting over a gas stove. Over charcoal you would pick up the wood smoke from the roasting source. A gas stove you may pick up some rotten egg from the sulfides they put in the natural gas to make it stinky if you have a gas leak.

Here's a photo of my attempt to roast some Colombian in an old copper lamp that I converted to a roaster over hardwood charcoal on my Weber Grill. It sure gets hot and was more trouble than it was worth, but the coffee came out good.

If you are going to roast over charcoal use lump charcoal. Charcoal briquettes have coal and binders added to hold them together. Lump charcoal is just hardwood, no additives and a cleaner flavor. That is all I use now a days.