Dante, glad to see you posting here !
The drum .vs. fluid bed. yes that's the standard chevy .vs. ford argument there. I have gotten wonderful roasts out of BOTH methods, and No one is NOT brighter than the other, most of that stuff can for the most part be controlled by YOU !!
LEARN YOUR MACHINE !!
Now that I think of it, wow, Ive been roasting oh god, 16 years now I think? Where the hell did my life go! When I first started roasting, I was a bit out of the navy and wondering where my life will end up next. Now I find myself retired from my SECOND job .. and my life ended up here. N E V E R.... seen that coming in a million years !!
Dante hits this one the head, you HAVE to have a versatile roaster, especially if you are going to do any kind of roasting for anyone else or really 'get into it'. Some people like it dark, some don't. Some coffee's need a TON of heat to get going, others not so much. That is one thing that always got me on the Behmor and doing Sulawesi's, you'd watch the timer drop down to zero and not a thing you can do about it, and juuuust about the time it'd FINALLY get into crack, the thing would go into cool down. The newer ones don't do this anymore though I have heard.
Your comment on the light roast not wanting to do well in the espresso machine. Don't want to sound like an ass but... have you tried other machines? I never had any problem with it BUT can absolutely see how it might affect it. Darker roasts, more 'fuzzies' lets call them, are burnt off, bean may be hardened a bit. Think krikostats vs wobomurmurs... so it's less of a torturous path for the water to have to find it's way through. Can you adjust the pressure on your machine? oh enough you are old enough to know this stuff
At the end of the day though, ENJOYING it is what it is all about. I see some people they have a fkn nasa chem lab set up on their roaster and they lament EVERY roast, oh this took 2.3 seconds longer than this did / should have etc. They get so caught up in their pedantic minutia, that they forgot to have fun and ENJOY what they did get !! It's like Dude!! you got 30k of gadgets on this thing, and you still are crying about the coffee? go back to folgers, then you'll have a real reason to cry!
Peters comment on the last roast was the best, I don't know how many times Ive had this. I roast a coffee and it's ohh it's good!, then pick out the highlights for my cupping notes, then 3 weeks later ill roast another batch for a roast customer and do it a bit differently and it's WOW! but wait... I already put my notes up and been selling it !! if I go and change them up now, people are going to be PISSED !! Also again, what am I using it for? If it's being blended with an espresso, maybe I want it a bit darker and muted to blend with the theme. or maybe I want it brighter to bring some pep to the earthen mix?
My personal preference now, and perhaps I am a bit biased, but I love the electric roaster I got now, the Artisan 6. It's powerful, it's fast, and its clean. no need to fiddle with gas pressures, or worry about a leak. I also have solar on the house, so don't have to worry about running out of gas.. or IMC power outages either !! The machine is built like a tank and if you do have to fix stuff, it's about as close to plug and play as you can get really.
aaron