Microwave roasted coffee (it was only a matter of time) pt.1

Spawned by an interesting thread at a local forum, and after being unable to find much on the topic, I thought it might be interesting to investigate the possibilities of roasting coffee in a microwave. Really it doesn't seem that crazy an idea (to me anyway), and after a quick wiki search the following description is found:

"A microwave oven, or microwave, is a kitchen appliance that can come in many different sizes and styles employing microwave radiation primarily to cook or heat food. This is accomplished by using microwaves, almost always emitted from a magnetron, to excite water (primarily) and other polarized molecules within the food to be heated. This excitation is fairly uniform, leading to food being heated everywhere all at once (except in thick objects), a feature not seen in any other heating technique."

Hmm, sounds promising, so it's off to the drawing board to figure this out.
In order to roast coffee you need heat, and aggitation.  Obviousely the heat comes from the microwaves, and the only form of aggitation available (without shaking the whole microwave) is a small rotating wheel at the base of the Microwave.
The answer seemed simple, turn the microwave on it's side and rig a small 'drum' to the rotating wheel.  The 'drum' in this case is a small sour cream tub (with a few divets cut into it to further agitate the beans and allow for some air flow) with the lid attached to the base wheel.



Now beans in the container and the whole thing is fixed onto the lid in the microwave.
 


I shut the door, set the timer to 8mins and away we go...

Thirty seconds later I open the door (the smell tipped me off) and discover this



Hmmm, clearly this drum has some flaws ;P Here's a shot of the beans to illustrate the consistancy and roast level at 30 seconds.



Clearly some work is needed, but at least we've seen that it is posible to use a microwave to roast beans.