Somewhere around two years ago, I brewed my first beer kit. (I love my wife) At that time I was in Pharmacy Tech School, and was so over whelmed with the possibility of making my family sick if I did anything at all wrong, no brewing for me. But, alas, I found out there are no pathogens found in beer that are harmful to humans, so a-brewing I will go. Costs, right. I made two extract kits, and for someone was clueless, (me) it wasn't great beer, but it was beer none-the-less. I compared the cost of brewing an extract batch versus AG, and the cost per batch was way cheaper, almost half the price.
I already had a 22 qt pot, bought two plastic buckets, actually four, two to make a Zapap tun, and two were just to brew. Three spigots, a hydrometer, a floating thermometer, and a lauter/sparge tun (made from two buckets), a bottling wand, and some tubing. So, four buckets from a bakery, maybe free, maybe $8.00, three spigots, $6.00, a floating thermometer, $7.00, a hydrometer, $7.00, a bottling wand, $4.00, tubing $5.00, and a $1.99 drill bit for the Zapap bucket.
You have a pasta pot, $0.00, plus $8.00, plus $6.00, plus $7.00. plus $7.00, plus $4.00, plus $5.00, plus $1.99.
$39.00 with everything bare bones needed to do AG. The last trip to my LHBS, cost me $19.85 for twenty pounds of mixed grains. With a few odds and ends I had, I made 12 gallons of 1.060 beer for $19.85.
I will say, I still use my home made Zapap tun every time I brew, and I make consistently good beer every time, sometimes I make great beer, and my 12-A Brown Porter just won a "Best In Category" in a local yearly Home Brewed Beer Contest. Am I proud?, you bet! Am I gloating over it? No, I am not. I have brewed many beers in the last year and a half, and never thought of ever entering another contest, due to the humiliation I received from my first contest scores. I was new, and I wanted to hear nice things about my beer, and they weren't worth scoring.
I have a turkey fryer setup I paid $20.00 at Wally World this Christmas. it came with a 50,000 BTU burner and a 30 qt aluminum pot. I had purchased a 40qt pot prior to buying the turkey fryer, and now I wish I had bought a 15 gallon. I got 8 gallons of 44* F water to a strong boil in what seemed like 10 minutes. My old burner would literally take an hour it seemed.