Please may I pick your brains on this? Would it be worth getting one of those cheapo homebrew kits from Wilko to brew up something like a basic stout, but adding something like chocolate extract or coconut to make it more interesting? Stewart's Brewing used to do a lovely coconut porter but it was a limited edition, and Campervan do one too but I don't see it very often.
I'll take the plunge and get a 5 gallon pan once I feel more confident about this, and once I have the storage space.
Yeah, I did that very thing my third or fourth batch - coopers stout kit, but I added a load of treacle. It was... interesting. There’s no rules! Add what you like! Beer from kits will only ever be alright. Not bad of anything, but because the mashing and hops are already done, there’s a a limit to how much you can alter the beer at the other end.
Re: adding stuff - things with higher sugar quantities ferment out more fully and give you more abv, but can taste a bit “hot” or unfinished if you go mad with them. You want to be careful and try and stay below 7% as beers that are stronger will probably take a while to age nicely and be drinkable, and you’d be getting near the tolerance of your US-05 yeast which I assume is what is in these kits. Amazon has a decent range of dry yeasts if you want to try a different one.
Dark fruits tend to be quite nice used sparingly in a light beer, that’s a nice addition I’ve done in the past. I can recommend a simple app like beersmith for designing recipes. All sorts of ingredients, and it’ll calculate what impact adding 500ml of honey (for example) will have on the final product without having to test and hope. Pretty sure it has most extract kits in as basic recipes, so you can boot one up then start adding stuff to it to tinker away.
Honestly, brewing gets as complicated as you want it to. No point getting a load of gear if you’re not sure yet. I’ve known people get a tiny grain bag, and make 4 pints of beer at a time to see how they like the whole process and if they’d be comfortable scaling it up.
I’d be happy to give advice if you have any ideas, or you’re welcome to give them a try without my input!