[sailaway21]

Thank you both very little, I think. (g)

Here's the deal. The i-Roast is the most reasonably priced for what it does. But it is a home use product and the manufacturer wants you to wait two hours between roastings. Other machines roast more quantity and can operate more frequently but there's cost issues, etc... Read the reviews of roasters at the Sweet Maria's web-site for more on that.

You can roast coffee in your popcorn popper! It's getting consistent results that's the bugaboo.

After roasting, you want the roasted coffee to breathe for a couple of days before grinding...it just tastes better that way. tjk's wife Julie says, screw that breathin', let me at those beans. She likes the results.

Pick out the beans you think you'll like...Sweet Maria's gives a pretty good description of each bean's potential. But order FIVE pounds, not one pound to try out. Your coffee is going to taste different dependent not only on the bean but the roast. So yes, you can make espresso with the same bean you made a lighter roast with. Some beans are very flexible that way, others much less so. But leaving those extremes of roast aside, you go through a few pounds just playing around and trying to get your roast down pat. You'll think you just made the best roast and then you'll let it go another thirty seconds the next time and get a yet better result. Like I say, it's fun to play around with. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes to roast up two cups worth of raw beans.

Keep a small notebook so you can remember what you did on each roast.

I'm already thinking that there's hardly a nicer, inexpensive Christmas gift than to give someone a little bag of beans you just roasted so that they can taste what fresh coffee is supposed to taste like. They'll be bugging you for more.