Wow! I really appreciate everyone taking the time to answer my questions/concerns. I read every response, learned alot and took in all the useful advice.

Long story short, I am pretty excited to make my first foray into roasting. I have a roaster and 10 lbs of green coffee otw.

See that you went with a Bullet R1. An excellent choice, probably the best there is for home roasting. I found the Bullet slightly too expensive and went with the Kaleido M10 (there's a topic running with my experiences in it). It's probably in the same league as the Bullet but maybe 25% cheaper and far more unknown. Still no cheap roaster by any means, but the lower price reflect what you get (still an excellent home roaster, but slightly less refined).

My first tip; buy 10 kg or so cheap beans for seasoning and learning how to control your roaster. There's lots of buttons, variables etc. at the start. 10 kg is on the higher side (I found 5 kg a bit too low), but after having 15 test batches or so under your belt, you'll feel a lot more confident throwing $10/lbs greens in there. Just take one batch beyond 2nd crack, drop one after FC, take a high and low starting point etc. and see and smell what happens.

In the Netherlands you can usually ask green bean providers for a bad batch or just some cheap robusta and they'll have something laying around for you. I paid like €30 for 10kgs beans.

Hey everyone so short on the heels of upgradeitis and going with an LMLM and loving it I am now getting an itch to try something in the realm of roasting myself. I've come to the conclusion that after lots of threads here i am more of a dark Italian roast and though there are I'm sure plenty of them the most recent Saka blends seem to be peaking my interest. I'm wondering why I couldn't do that myself? So I already have a popcorn popper pot which seems to be the starter kit on sweet Maria's. I just placed an order for 4# of her sampler for espresso and am excited. Any suggestions before I start down the hole ?