Bought an Ikawa Home about five months ago and haven’t bought any roasted beans since (other than one for the packaging I liked!). Absolutely love it.
You’ll have to take my word on this but I can quite happily roast beans to a quality on par with plenty of commercial roasts I’ve had.
I will say that a big part of this is that the Ikawa is an absolute breeze to use and you can basically press one button and get great roasts if you want. Manual roasting with some of the other home roasters that require venting is probably a much less forgiving and therefore less enjoyable process for a beginner.
I roast 500g a week - 250g filter and 250g espresso. Takes under an hour and I just do it next to a window in the kitchen. Big plus of the Ikawa is that it cools the beans so you can bag them pretty much immediately. Despite the 100g capacity, you can preload 100g in the hopper so it’s just one button to start the next batch. For light roasts I get about 10% loss so 85-90g yield in a 100g charge.
Depending on your preference on beans you can ultimately save money although not for a while given the cost of the roaster. I was buying med-light roasts for £35-50 a kilo, and I can now roast similar for about £10-15 a kilo. I’ve actually recently roasted Ethiopian greens from the same farm as a commercial roaster I like and whilst it wasn’t quite as refined as the commercial roast, it was very good.
I’ve graduated to using non-Ikawa greens and building my own profiles through cupping and trial/error lately and I really enjoy the process as a hobby. I’ve learned a lot about the roast process too and how different temperatures and rates of rise affect output. The Ikawa app makes learning easier as you’ve got a visual reference graph.
Green sources can change depending on availability. Ikawa beans are great but very pricey compared to others. The bonus is for beginners you get the associated roast profiles to just load onto the machine.
Micro Green Coffee Collective are also great. Redber are good for more traditional beans.
Happy to answer any questions on the Ikawa if you have any.