Moxiechef wrote: What really turned my mind was the key to learning to roast is to roast........a lot. And the smaller roaster is designed and built to crank out small batches.

You nailed it.

Let me try to elaborate few more words. In my opinion, getting more instant feedbacks will also facilitate the learning process. The feedbacks include (but are not limited to) the origin of the beans, final taste in the cup, the correlation of the taste to a certain roasting profile, as well as the real time observation of the roast temperature responses to the gas/airflow modulation.

As long as your bean temp probe touches the bean mass, you should be able to do a decent roast on any bean. I roast on a Proaster 10K (it is actually 9K) and have done 1 lb successfully - because the probe still touched the bean mass. Watch the ROR and don't overcompensate on the heat because the smaller amount of beans will be more sensitive.
Curly

+1 That's how I did my tiny sample roasts, that and watching the bean temp in Artisan software, where I can watch the projected curve.