I saw you mentioned looking into conical equipment. Do you currently do any all grain or full boil?
I started mostly identical to what you've got there. Had some great results, I highly recommend adding additional grains for flavor, sounds like you've been doing that too. The kits are great but after going all grain my brews got so much better. Something about the kits, they just always seem to taste similar. Kinda like Campbell's soup recipes, there's 1000 casseroles to be made with Campbell's but they all kinda taste the same.
I do a full boil in a DIY keg kettle then ferment in a carboy, haven't gone conical yet, very tempted though. I went straight to kegging early on, bottling is such a chore.
And, yes, aging pays off. The best beer is always the last one!
I'd love to hear more about your brews and equipment
I do not do any all grain, I'm still just at the kit stage; but I am looking into moving up. A conical fermenter would work with my kit beers as well, they just look great for removing sediment and easy bottling/kegging.
I'm not sure though if I should save up for an integrated system like The grainfather or just buy a couple of big pots and use those. I saw some diy versions on some homebrewing forums so I might try my hand at building one. Those big pots aren't cheap though, are they? heh.
I agree with the kit comment; the taste is similar, that's why I tend to use the same wheat beer kit as it works great as a base, lightly flavoured, clean and I can just push it to any direction I want.
Your set up is a few levels above me and I hope I'll get there at some point. Do you use cornelius kegs or something else? I've got a plastic keg, but never used it, I should though, maybe for the this batch as I'm low on bottles as it is.
You should do a post on your DIY system, or could you give me more details on how you made it?
Thanks