I've read this one and it's really good. Read the whole description to see if its what you are looking for. The author is a barista champ and one of the "thinkers" in the coffee industry and writes really well.
http://www.amazon.com/World-Atlas-Coffee-Explored-Explained/dp/1770854703
By that I mean the non-pulsing method e.g. 12g coffee in, 24g off boil (~205F) water, 30s bloom, then add the rest of the water slowly in one pour, stir the top and let in drain. It is the method in James Hoffman's book but I will admit I haven't actually tried it...
If you struggle to fit all the water in over the course of a single pour you could always use an 02 size v60, and tighten the grind up a tiny bit to allow for the increased flow rate.
If you want to use v60 at work try a method you could replicate at work and compare it with your normal go-to method, you may find that the results are perfectly acceptable. For example, blooming is usually encouraged but you could probably get away with a more basic method (eg: add all coffee, add all water, stir at the top, drain), just might need to play around with grind size to get a ~3min drawdown
Invest it in coffee knowledge! Your Aeropress (or any coffee!) will taste better and be more fun after reading James Hoffman's Coffee Atlas.
My longtime friend bought me for my birthday the James Hoffman World Atlas of Coffee. It is as delightful as James Hoffman's videos are and I have gotten a lot of mileage out of reading right through it. It's not strictly a recipe book, but it is a start-to-finish, out of the ground to your cup description of every aspect of coffee cultivation and brewing that there is, right down to the water, beans, and recipes for various brewing methods, including a country-by-country inventory of what grows where.
Alternatively, Tristan Stephenson has a book which is smaller, but ironically less readable that gets a bit more into coffee cocktails and making coffee liqueurs, in addition to sober coffee brewing and history.
I did a quick scroll through and didn't see it, but someone might have already said it. I highly recommend reading up in the form of The World Atlas of Coffee mostly because it is a very comprehensive look at specialty coffee from bean to cup and instills the humbling reality of what goes into every single cup and how many lives depend on the coffee industry. It goes on to explain brew methods, both espresso beverages and some pour overs/ immersion methods, and it's all around a very fascinating read. As far as knowing your stuff, finish that book and you're ahead of many many enthusiasts.
As for why you want to grind your own beans/ benefits of brews/ gear.... remember it all boils down (ha pun) to one thing- the flavor of your coffee. If you like what you have, that's great. If you taste a cup you like better, try to make it that way. If you grab a brewer of some kind, use things like the Coffee Compass and the Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel to dial your brew to your liking. Everyone else in this thread has probably covered the basics, but I'll run through a couple as well:
Full bodied/ intense mouth feel. These brewers will have all the oils and particulates and generally result in a 'stronger' cup. These are your french press, your moka pot, etc. You get more of the "stuff" out of the coffee with these. I'll cover that a little later on.
Middle of the road/ 'standard' coffee. These brewers are going to be all the standard pour over methods like the V60, Kalita Wave, etc. These are typically single cup methods, and with paper or cloth filters will pull a little more out of the final brew resulting in more clarity, as in less oils, particulates, etc.
The last category (in my mind) I pretty much reserve for the Chemex. It is a super dense paper filter that pulls nearly all oils and particles out of the final cup, leaving what's thought of as a very clean cup.
Edit: wanted to throw in the Aeropress since many sing it's praises. It doesn't really fit any of these categories because it can be used with a variety of different methods to produce a wide range of cups, though I believe most people that have one end up dialing one recipe in and sticking with it. A metal filter gets a full bodied cup with a heavy mouthfeel, two paper filters gets closer to a chemex, fine grind can give a coffee extract like espresso (but not actually espresso) to cut with water for an americano feel... it's a work horse, affordable, and all around easy to use. I just don't recommend this crazy inverted method all the kids are talking about. Good way to get burnt, and not that much benefit if you ask me.
Now, it is worth noting that with a metal filter in a chemex, you can emulate the mouthfeel and content of a french press brew, and with a finer filter in the press, perhaps you get a cleaner cup. Remember, these are just basic fly-bys for you getting started, and no brew method is set in stone.
Now, last topic is obsessing over water/ coffee ratios, brew times, grind size and consistency, and equipment in general. So unless you are roasting your own beans, your only job as a brewer is to take away as little from the quality of the bean as you can. You are never going to make a roasted coffee bean better than it is by brewing it a certain way. In this way, your entire job is minimizing the negative effects you can have. First is the grind. Once a bean is ground, it begins to lose quality with time as it oxidizes. Hence why we (in this sub) have our own grinders. The closer to the brew time you grind, the better it will be. Second comes grind consistency. Flavors in coffee come from water-soluble molecules that leave the bean and dissolve into the hot water during the brew. In order to get these extracted properly, you need to control all variables as much as you can. The first is the aforementioned grind consistency. If you grind your coffee and some grounds are tiny, some large, you wont get the same flavors from each ground at any given time, and you will over extract the small ground and under extract the large one. Basically, you want all of the coffee grounds to be perfect spheres and the exact same size. Since that is impossible, you spend money on grinders that can get as close to it as we know how. Next is temperature. This is simple to start and gets more complex as you experiment. You want hot water to penetrate and dissolve the coffee, but too hot and you'll have burnt flavors. Starting out, shoot for around 200-205 degrees F. You can look through research and recipes and play around with it later. Since you are just starting and they are cheaper, get a gooseneck kettle for the stove, boil it, let it sit for about 30 seconds to a minute off boil before brewing. Fourth is brew time. This is another critical step that doesn't depend on your equipment- this is all you. Brew time is important because those molecules I was talking about dissolve at different rates. Look at a standard pour over with a common grind size- in the first say 30 seconds of the brew, the lighter flavors (see coffee taster's flavor wheel above) like the floral notes and citruses will be fully extracted. Then the mids of caramel and some chocolaty notes in the next minute or so, then at the end comes the heavy flavors or smoke or tobacco. Why? Well it's because the molecules are different size and therefore take different amounts of time to dissolve. If you brew for too long, the really big molecules come out to play, and you'll be sipping on a delightful cup with a strong scent and notes of rubber and charcoal. No bueno. So brew time is another facet to dial in.
All in all, there are a lot of nitpicky points to focus on, but to take it back to the beginning, it's all about the flavor. These are some basics that other people have pointed out to me and that I have discovered, but all the knowledge in the world won't make the perfect cup of coffee because it doesn't exist, or rather it is different for every palette. Some lucky bastard out there may have taste such that McDonald's coffee really is the best there is. For the rest of us, we spend a stupid amount of time and money chasing something better. Welcome.
Sorry that got a little out of hand. I was going to keep it simple, but coffee isn't really simple for those that are in too deep.
1- Light roast has the most flavour but most acidity as well, medium roast has a balance and dark roast has lowest acidity but almost same flavour for any origin coffee you try
2- i cant comment exactly on this but what i have seem is anyone who uses whirley pot use it directly on stovetop.. you can add cast iron if you like.. its logically that it can even out the heat..
3- for online knowlegde, reddit is good but ill suggest join roasting forums, they can help you out and can anwser your queries alot better.. as for books you can buy/download pdf files like World Atlas of coffee and bluebottle ebook
4- im not from LA so cant help.. sorry.. but you can go to any local roaster and talk to them and as your questions they are helpfull.. maybe search on yelp for nearby roasts..
You might want to just step it up and get the world atlas of coffee, it's the most informative book on coffee I've bought. https://www.amazon.com/World-Atlas-Coffee-Explored-Explained/dp/1770854703
Let's learn from the best. Many of us have already read Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques by Schomer. Some have read Rao's books and some Illy's. These are great (but incomplete) resources, here are a few more that I urge everyone to use.
Gwilym Davies (World Barista Champion 2009) has a series of videos on youtube (thanks European Coffee Trip) about dosing, tamping, handling cups, and cleaning the machine. They are very concise and accurate. I've worked on the bar for 3 years and these videos helped me brew evenly extracted espressos.
Matt Perger writes the barista hustle a blog featuring near scientific analysis of coffee brewing and roasting. I think this is essential reading for barista's today.
Another great read is the World Atlas of Coffee by James Hoffman.
I'm of the opinion that we have all the tools and analysis to create great tasting espresso and that we must access these resources and actively use them in order to not be replaced by increasingly sophisticated super automatics.