Christmas equipment question

So, I was thinking of getting the parts and making a mini-fridge kegerator for christmas. I already have a keezer, but it doubles as a fermentation and a kegger, which really limits my brewing. I currently brew stove top with deathbrewers pm and small batch ag process. Basically brewing with the bag.

My other thought is to get a real ag setup. Burner, tuns, and the like. Question is, will this REAL ag setup really help my beers improve? Should I make the switch to outdoor brewing, real sparging, etc.? If the quality will increase significantly I'm all for it. Or just build a kegerator and stick to my current process? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

To best answer your question, you must take a moment to think about where you want to go with your hobby.

There are several additions that are under $50 that will greatly help your brewday.
On the other hand some items you can get may cost even more to employ them.


A great buy is a burner and large boil kettle.

I've done about seven or eight extracts, about the same PM's, and maybe a dozen or so All Grains.

I gotta tell ya that some (most) of the extracts that I made were great beers. I upgraded the yeast for the kits, and used fresh LME and DME plus fresh hops.

If your only objective is the taste of the end product, then a lot of the extracts are hard to beat. If you want to really get under the hood and find out about beer, then All Grain will be inevitable. If you want total freedom to create and modify recipes, then it's All Grain. If you want to adjust mash and sparge temperatures to craft a specific final brew, then again, it's all grain.

You'll probably make better beers when you do All Grain, but you'll spend more time doing it, and you'll probably study and read a ton more then, than you're doing to make extracts.

Good Luck...