What an exciting time to be involved in coffee roasting. New roasters are popping up all over the place. I just came across this roaster called the Mercury roaster. Looks kinda like the Quest on steroids. I've emailed them and I'm still waiting to hear what the price is. If anyone else knows any information please share. Cheers
http://www.cloudbean-tech.com

I'm extremely interested in this. Thank you for sharing it!

Small capacity is good but 1lb / 454g would have been my ideal as the smallest size I 'd like to roast at a time.

Cool looking build. It would be nice if they offered a gas powered version for more responsive heat controls.

300g charge is a nice spot for home use; I often do 300g batches in my 1 pound roaster, as that lets me have more variety of roasts to switch among while they are fresh.

Nice looking roaster, indeed! Any idea about pricing or availability?

Intriguing. I don't roast yet, but plan to start soon. I have been going over the many excellent roasting threads on HB since seeing another_jim's Quest M3 in person last week at an HB gathering he hosted. I zeroed in on the Quest as the perfect starting point for me, but this Mercury looks like it needs a close look. There is very minimal info on their web site. Very interested in finding out the price.

Here are some observations:
- 1 Year warranty (more than the Quest, which is only 30 days)
- The glass observation window looks to be tiny
- The dump door also looks to be small. Not sure it matters.
- It appears to not come with a cooling tray with fan
- The trier is angled like the Quest (and maybe a bit bigger?), so it should not have the Huky problem of beans falling out when trier removed.
- Nice funnel for loading beans
- The damper handle matches the dump door handle. Nice touch.
- No thermometers. That may not be an issue for most.
- Not many places on the face plate where a screw could be removed to add a thermocouple. There is one opposite the trier that might be good for BT, and there are 2 higher than that that mat work for ET. It would be good to know the thread size. If they are M4, the erics Quest adapters will fit.
- On the other hand, there is a Bluetooth app shown running on a tablet (appears to be Android) on the web page. That implies this roaster is already instrumented. Wonder if it can be easily connected to Artisan software.
- 110V and 22V support
- There is a nice airflow diagram here: http://www.cloudbean-tech.com/about-roasting
- It appears to have a much better chaff collecting cyclone than either the Quest or Huky
- No info about if the drum is perforated
- No info about Drum RPM
- Not clear where the airflow or heat controls are

Tom

I don't know the options list but I just got a reply back , it's conversion rate puts it at only $1100

That seems cheap..Intriguing little roaster.

He said he hasn't set a US price yet however, and quoted me in Taiwanese currency. I doubt that includes the cooling tray system and some of those nicer digital features, but until we hear specifics, it's all speculation.

He just wrote me and I was quoted me NTD 43900 locally which when I converted it was $1372 . They have no international distribution yet . Other than that he said its using an eletric heating tube (carbon fiber) 1200W.