Need convincing

[SteveH]

As others have said I'd say start with a stove-top BIAB with a large stock-pot. I got a 17l pot of ebay last year and have done about 10 BIAB AG brews now, and it works well for 10l batches.

You'll still need the pot to heat sparge water if/when you decide to get a Robobrew or similar later, and you can gain some AG experience cheaply first to decide if it's for you?

All that said, I do have a Robobrew v3 arriving today!

 

[dad_of_jon]

I did 2 kits then went over to dried malt extract, then adding some steeping grains and or a mini mash, but I've never done a full AG. I've also tweaked kits. You can get a variety of styles from sours to RIS, wheat beer , bitter, quads without going AG but if you want the best chance of copying a favorite commercial recipe you need to go AG as extract only wont cut it. I did a smoked stout last year, you cant get smoked extract so I mashed 1kg of smoked malt to get the flavour I wanted.

Plus when I need to get a sneaky brew in under MRS DOJ's radar - 3kg of extralight extract and a quick hop boil and I'm all done including tidying away in under 2 hours, there is also as has been quick nothing to stop you doing a quickie kit/extract if you go AG. My sour beer was no grain no boil & no hops! - quickest brew I ever made.