Going from extracts to mash is like going from a beer making kit to going to extracts. The quality of the brew improves greatly.
its not hard, it just takes some practice. You will accidentally make chocolate malt a few times, but thats ok. The level of control you gain from going to mash will astound you, and after your first successful mash brew you will be coming apart at the seams with all the ideas you will have.
As Papazan says, 'Relax, have a homebrew!'
I wouldn't go so far as to say the quality is THAT much better with all grain, but you are no longer limited to what you can find in the way of DME or LME. You can get quite experimental with your brew.
I do mostly decoction mashing, as I make a lot of German beer styles. It is more complicated and time consuming but, for certain beer styles, it is worth it.
I have never had a bad mash, or "chocolate milk". The first thing you need if you don't have it would be a recipe program (Beersmith, ProMash, etc).
Which will do all the temp calculations for you. Next, a mash tun. If you are even moderately handy with tools, you can make one from an Igloo cooler, ball valve, and some CPVC pipe. You can batch sparge, which is a bit less efficient that continuous of "fly" sparging, but requires less equipment.
If you are vigilant about your sanitation (which you already seem to have down pat), and have somewhere with a decently stable temperature to ferment, then you are good to go. Making good beer does NOT require a ton of fancy equipment. Monks have been doing it for years and years, even before electric light
The biggest thing that more equipment does for you is make the brew day easier, especially if you are doing it alone.
What I WOULD invest in is a good chiller. If you go all-grain, you won't be topping off the fermenter with cool water as your wort will be the full volume after the mash and sparge. I got my plate chiller from
http://www.dudadiesel.com/ for pennies less than ANYTHING that says Blichmann on it and I can cool 15 gallons from boil to 70 degrees in less than 10 minutes. It makes for an awesome cold-break.
I've got a small, 50 qt. mash tun and a bigger 120 qt. one. Here is the bigger one and the amount of grain it can hold...
The worst part is cleaning out the mash tun (which I make brewmeister Todd do
)
If you have the vertical space you can make a 3-tier gravity system. I don't, my basement has a low ceiling so I had to make a single tier and buy a March pump.
I have also made a stir plate for making yeast starters (buy one smack pack and propagate it, or harvest yeast from a previous batch) which cuts down on cost.
Here is a Vid of the system running
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDB-tPbsP5kAs far as growing hops? I think it is the best thing that I ever did. I have six varieties growing now and, since my sister just bought a farm with some property, I plan on having many more. If you want to PM me after the winter, I'll cut some rhizomes and send them to ya.
