Came across this small gas roaster from Taiwan. About 200g per roast. I can see it may be difficult to control roast profile with the butane burner and cooling, but the simple design may appeal to some. From other coffee forums, it costs between USD$200 to $300, depending on the exchange rate.

http://www.billiecoffee.com/roaster0.htm

I don't buy their "efficient" statement, but its quite elegant. Kind of like a tabletop vacuum brewer.

It's nice looking imitation of the classical Probat sample roaster. Some thoughts:

Since mini-burners go up to about 7500 BTU/H (2KW), fast roasts should be no problem.

Not sure about those little chaff slits.

You'll need external cooling.

These roasters run with very hot drum temperatures; this has two consequences: When I took the Q-Cupping course, I had to spend the first few days relearning the taste of all the coffees, since they were so much toastier tasting than air roasted cupping roasts. Also, the Probat lab roaster drums are massive; if this ones are flimsy; it may char at every roast level.

But if the drum is sound, at $500, it would be very interesting indeed.

From the linked page:



I can see this one as a good fit for the tinkerer geek home roaster -- it screams "modify me!". I like it!

Looks like agitation is well taken care of, price is very attractive, heat control shouldn't be a major problem. I don't see it as a complete roaster, just a nice skeleton to build on.

If this one was available for ~$250 a few years ago(before I invested in my current setups), I'd definitely buy one.