Please kind sir, tell me more of this "contraption" that you speak of.
It looks affordable, hands on, fun, DIY and roasts coffee. I'm a fan of all those things.
>Inkleg goes off to google Turbo oven<
Do a search for SC/TO coffee roasters.
The stir crazy was a brand of popcorn makers. The base is the only part you'll use. I have a generic model that I bought on a whim at Walmart for nothing. You throw away the plastic top. The base has a hotplate, which I disconnected (not sure if everybody does this or not) and a stirring mechanism. The hotplate is not hot enough to roast the coffee alone because it is temperature-regulated. I did try bypassing the regulator, and it got very hot, but then it burned the coffee beans too easily. Some people make different mods to the stirring bars to get a better stir - I haven't done that (yet).
The heat comes from the Turbo Oven lid. I use a generic model I bought for nothing used. You only need the TO lid - just throw away the base part. The lid has a big heating element, fan, and timer. It blows pretty hard, and between that and the stirring action, you can get a fairly even roast on batches up to 1#.
The piece of ductwork in the middle is something I found at Home Depot. Just measure the diameter of the SC and look for something 2 or 3 inches tall. I had to modify it just a bit with some tin snips, but it was about 15 minutes of effort.
One fine mod that some people do is to connect a temperature controller (i.e., PID, SSR, and temp sensor) so that they can accurately set the temperature. The temperature sensor gets mounted in the SC base (drill hole, poke it through) and the PID/SSR control power to the TO. I haven't done this (yet
).
I do 1# batches by setting the TO to 400F and roasting for 20 minutes. Still works great for me. I've roasted a lot of coffee with this thing.
Jammin (on this forum) recommended it to me. He might have more info to add. Lots of people using them out there, so just google and absorb.