How good can it get with just a basic kit?

1. Fermentation Chamber
2. The ability to make yeast starters

Those two things are necessary.

 

You can do Brew in a Bag and make some fantastic AG beers with no mash tun.

You might be limited on making long term beers with no secondary, I believe the rule is one month on the yeast cake at most or you start to get undesirable flavors. Though you can always just let it condition in bottles so even this isn't a huge limiting factor.

 

Maybe. But with a 7 gallon brewpot, the batch size is going to be pretty limited with BIAB.

 

I wouldn't bet against a kit making a competition style beer. DME is often used by pros who know what they're doing with it. If you want to up your game, make sure you're buying fresh ingredients and make sure you share and get good feedback from other brewers. Friends will always tell you, "Yeah, this beer is awesome." That's because it's free beer. Go to a homebrew club or homebrew store and take some of your beer wit you. You can have others pick up on flaws in your beer. Your next step, if you want to get away from kits is to sit down with someone and hash out a recipe for a style. Think of a style you want to brew, look at 10 recipes, and take what you think is the best parts of them. Melt them into a recipe and fire away.

 

When I first started brewing the homebrew clerk insisted that I buy a 6 gal kettle so that I could do full boils. This quickly became a hot liquor tank.

 

There is way more of a direct relationship between brewing theory knowledge : beer quality > ingredients + equipment : beer quality. Of course quality ingredients make better beer, but they are useless without adequate brewing theory knowledge.

If your goal is to make world class beer, be prepared for a long journey, full of reading, experimentation, and borderline obsessive behaviors.

 

This is where I'm at as well. I need to make a few more batches, accumulate a bit more knowledge, screw up a lot and then when I see a clear advantage a better purchase can make, I'll make blow some money on a better setup.

 

Like any other hobby I would wait until you know you are in for the long haul and want to brew regularly before spending more money. With the equipment you have you can make good beer but you will notice significant improvements if you add the following elements.

Fermentation Temp Control
Aeration with oxygen before pitching the yeast
Pitching the proper amount of healthy yeast at proper temperatures
Fresh ingredients
If you are bottling use a priming sugar calculator and weigh your priming sugar

 

How far into the brewing experience did people move from pre made kits to mixing and matching and gathering their own ingredients?

 

I did 1 kit straight up, 1 kit modified, then started brewing my own recipes after those two batches. Extract first 5 batches then made the jump to all grain.

 

I have never done a kit. I'm not opposed to them or anything, just never did.

 

I finished my second kit and I want try to modify my next one before I completely start making it from scratch.

 

That's one way to transition, for sure. If you head over to HBT there is a "Recipes" forum you could look at to see what has worked for others. It will give you an idea of hop schedules, and different grains/malts used for particular styles.

 

I've done 1 kit, and my second was a recipe that I pulled from the Homebrew Association website (I modified the spices slightly, and scaled down to 1 gallon). What I'm seeing now is the definite need for fermentation temperature control if this is something your serious about.

 

After getting most fundamentals down over the past few years, I'm seeing some aspects that separate good beer & great beer.

1. Yeast health & pitching rates
2. Oxygenation of the wort
3. Fermentation control
4. Mash pH
5. Water chemistry

Brewers that have the fundamentals mastered and are doing these things right are the ones putting out world class beer.

 

I did 4 kits and then started making my own recipes. The book Brewing Classic Styles helped me learn about each style and what a receipt would typically include. BYO also has some good information online that breaks down each style of beer.

The recipe forums were not as helpful for me when I was just starting. There are tons of recipes with each brewer making their own tweaks and you usually don't know how creditable that person is. Trying to use those as a jumping off point can be difficult.

 

Your right to earn bigger and better equipment should be based on your desire to brew. If you think you're serious about it, and you have the money, the equipment will practically buy itself.

 

It simply comes down to ingredients and technique.