you're missing one of the best parts IMO the smell of the sweet boiling wort...

Oh yes.

With this first batch I made, I used a mix of extract and grains and steeped them, as you mentioned.

In regards to the comment about yeast bite, I'm hoping that isn't a problem with my beer. I noticed I have quite a bit of yeast sediment on the bottom of the beer. This is because I only did a primary fermentation, and never racked it off to a secondary container. My friend has a nicer setup which allows him to rack off the yeast from the bucket without transferring. It has a nice spigot at the bottom of the fermentation container. Thinking I might have to pick me up one of those. Or at least, try racking off to a secondary container. With my current setup, it might be kind of hard because I'd have to rack off to my secondary (bottling) bucket, then back into the primary one, since the bottling bucket isn't sealable.

Well, we'll see how this batch turns out. More on that in a few hours.