One of the reasons why aspiring homebrewers start with extract brews, they can usually do it with the equipment they already have in the kitchen. That way they can test out if brewing is for them at a minimal cost and investment.
Your local bakery may have a free 3-4 gallon bucket for you that contained icing, perfect for fermenting 2-3 gallon brews. Just drill a 1/2" hole in the lid, and stick a grommet and airlock in it.
You can easily do a 1-2 gallon partial boil in a large pot (or 2 pots) or (small) soup kettle or canning pot, on the stove. Then top up to 2-3 gallons with cold water in your fermenter.
Especially avoid any
Mr. Beer type of recipe kits that come with cans of
pre-hopped malt syrup/extract and a couple bags with marginal "brew enhancers."
Most recipe kits from your local brew store or online brew retailer are fine as long as the liquid malt extract (LME) is super fresh, which is always the big unknown variable.
Instead of a recipe kit, you can buy loose ingredients.
Unless you
know for certain the LME is fresh, to eliminate possible stale LME due to unknown age and storage conditions, use "dry malt extract" (DME). DME often comes in factory sealed 3# bags, and can be stored for at least a year (much longer actually) without deterioration.
To make your beer recipe complete, you also need to buy:
- Some (pre-packaged, vacuum sealed or nitrogen flushed) hops,
- A package of dry beer yeast,
- And some steeping grain, milled fresh.
Water:
Most tap water that you would drink and tastes good is usually fine for extract brewing. But avoid very hard or water with high mineral content.
If it's marginal, yellow, brown, or otherwise discolored, smells weird or bad, stains tubs and sinks, etc. or went through a water softener, buy RO or distilled water instead.
Municipal water often contains chlorine or chloramines (for sanitation), that needs to be neutralized with 1/4 Campden tablet (or a pinch of K-Meta) per 5 gallons.
As mentioned before, read
How to Brew. It's your brew bible.