we have fun here
BIAB setup; Kettle size 8.25 gal, ported (ball valve), thermometer. Lake Michigan Tap treated w/ campden. Salts: Gypsum, Calsium Chloride, Salt (as req.). Lactic acid added based on water chemistry predictions, don't have pH testing. 60 min Mash at ~6 gal water, drained, squeezed, sparge with 1.5 gal @170, ~10min rest. Boil, sometimes use hop-sock. Chiller is DIY ~20' Cu piping with submersible pump, run it cold tap for ~30 mins. Fermonster 7gal or 7gal bottling bucket (ported), temp controlled w/ STC 1000 and electric blanket (low wattage), wrapped in reflex-insulation. 10lb Co2 & 2.5lb portable. Usually run ~8-10psi, kegeartor fits 2 corny kegs. One draft tower w/ tower chiller, one pluto beer gun inside of kegerator. Sanke adapted as needed.
Homebrewing is not that hard. The hardest part about it is the cost for barrier to entry. While good starter kits can be had for about $175 (my first kit was the Morebeer Delux), the extract setup that they start you out with gets old quick. I have brewed two beers with dried malt extract (as opposed to using actual grains), one of them turned out rather poorly and the other was so cost prohibitive (~100 something bucks) I was very eager to move onto All Grain Brewing.
With how easy is it to get into all-grain brewing with Brew-In-A-Bag (BIAB), I don't understand why beginners are so steered towards extract brewing. They kind of set you up for failure by giving you a 5 gallon kettle in these starter kits, because if you want to move onto All Grain brewing, who the hell wants to make 3 gallons of beer. I would have gladly paid the extra 30~ dollars for an 8 gallon kettle when I first started out, but I digress.
So making the beer, that's all fine and dandy. You steep the crushed grains in ~150 degree F water, ~65C, for about an hour, and that lets the enzymes on and in the grain to convert the starches into sugar. You then remove the grains (BIAB is basically a massive 40lb,15kg teabag) bring this liquid (called Wort) up to a boil, and boil it for an hour (this helps drive off nasty volitile tastes and sterilizes the Wort, beer is highly susceptile to infections from wild yeasts and bacteria.
Once boiled, you chill the Wort down to below 80F,25C, and this is either done by putting the kettle in an ice bath and stirring it (be careful, anything that gets into the Wort below 165F(75C) risks it infecting your beer), or having a copper tubing system act as a heat exchanger by flowing cold water into the copper pipe. I opt for the latter, it's hard to find a big enough sink or bucket to hold my boiling hot kettle. Once it's cooled, you must sanitize everythig that comes into contact with it. That means the fermenter, the airlock that lets CO2 out and nothign in, and even the scissors and the yeast packet. Better safe than sorry.
Once the cooled Wort is transferred into the fermenter, you sprinkle in the yeast (or pour if it's liquid yeast), add the lid, give it a good shake to mix it and aerate the Wort (oxygen is important at this stage, the yeast need it), and you put it in an area that's a stable cool temp for about two weeks. I think it's more important to have a stable temp instead of a variable but cooler temp, most beer does best around 65F, 17C. Now note, the fermentation does genearte heat, so putting the fermenter in a 65F,17C room could see it jump to 70F,20C by itself.
Once it's fermented out, you can either bottle it (the so-called beginner-friendly approach) or keg it. In bottling, the uncarbonated beer (no longer Wort after fermenting) is placed into sanitized bottles, sugar (usually Dextrose, corn sugar) is added, and it is capped and then needs to sit *again* for two more weeks, so the residual yeast can eat the sugar and carbonate the beer. After 2 weeks you can chill it, but you can't drink from the bottle. There's a layer of dead yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle, and it's best practice to carefully pour off the beer into a glass, and leave this yeast layer behind (it's not good to drink, digestive wise).
Now kegging, that's where it's at. You pour all the uncarbonated beer into the keg, seal it, add CO2 pressure, put it in a fridge, and it can be ready in as little as 24 hours. Carbonating on CO2 can be as fast as you want it, but you may risk overcarbonating it and serving tons of foam, it's a chore to fix. I do the middle-ground approach usually, set it at 2-3x serving pressure for 2-3 days, and then it's good to go (and cold too!). In the first few days the beer is on the tap, it's not 100% going to taste like the finished product, give it a few days to mellow out the flavours. I don't know why this happens because all life-form processes are very nearly stopped in the fridge (34F,1C), but all my kegs have tasted better after a few days in the fridge, even if they've already been fully carbonated during that time.