Alright, I confess...I'm the one that got svferris into brewing. I've been doing it for sometime and have gotten to an almost all-grain setup (I only use about 3 lbs of extract now) with mashing and sparging...if you feel like going there, you will get real flavor improvement in your beer. The setup I have that ferris reffered to is a cylindrical-conical fermenter. It looks like a mini version of the big fermenters the breweries use. The benefits are that the dead yeast a other crap settles in the cone at the bottom which has a drain valve. You can drain off that crap every morning (4 oz or so) and it keeps the beer really clean. You don't need to rack the beer off for secondary fermentation since you are draining off the junk from the bottom. It also has a bottling valve, so bottling is a snap. So, a couple comments:

>>I always get cloudy beer. If you figure out how to prevent it, let me know.

Gelatin...nothing fancy, just go to your local home-brew store and ask for gelatin. You put this in the beer 2-3 days before bottling. I work with a local homebrew store here in San Diego, and made a web site for the guy...he has some great explanations about "clarifying agents" http://www.redkart.com/cgi-bin/brew/ahbs/showstory.pl?s=tips&a=clarify (not to mention some great recipies and other advice)..

"Dry Hopping" is the act of adding hops to your brew AFTER the boil. This is usually done at the time of secondary fermentation or 3-4 days before bottling. Since you are not boiling the hops, the flavor and aroma they contribute are very different. This process usually contributes to a VERY strong hop aroma to the beer...great for IPAs!!

Now the good one...why you don't boil "malt kits". These are pre-done and already hopped. In other words...the wort is already done and pre-boiled. Another boil would ensure that the beer was sterile, but it would kill it. These kits are not meant to be heated. These are entry level kits for people whoe want to make beer, but want to keep it really easy...nothing wrong with that.

davec...what you are talking about is the next step up...extract brewing. This is where you use pre-fab malt extract, steeping grains for flavor and color, make your own wort, and boil that with hops for desired flavor and aroma. This is is still REALLY easy to do and will result in a MAJOR increase to the quality of the beer to produce...Rue...give it a try sometime. The next step would be what I do...partial mash brewing. It's not totally all grain, but it's close enough that if you know what you are doing, even seasoned beer snobs will think that it is all grain. This requires additional equipment and time, but I think it's worth it (it did take me 4 years to work up to this though).

As far as adding grains...Rue, steeping is NOT boiling. Steeping should be done at 155-165 F. Steeping grains are not meant to be boiled. Even in all grain you never actually boil the grains. You mash them at 155 and sparge them at ~170. The only thing you boil is the resulting wort.

For another level of quality on your pre-fab beer kits, try two things:
1. Use liquid yeast. If you can find it, White Labs makes great stuff. You buy a little test tube like thing, shake it up and pour it in. It will improve the quality of your beer drastically.
2. Use corn sugar (as your local brew store) for priming and don't prime the bottles individually. Use 3/4 cup of corn sugar / 5 gallons of beer. Disolve the sugar in 1 cup of boiling water (sterilize it), cool it down, then put it in a bucket and rack the beer into it. Mix it GENTLY, then bottle. There are two reasons for this:
1. The corn sugar is pure and processed and is a known quantity, malt varies and will never be the same from batch to batch
2. The ensures even distribution of the priming sugar throughout the beer...less chance for exploding bottles.

Lastly, once you've graduated to not using pre-fab malt kits, enter a local homebrew contest. The judges are almost always cool people and you can ask them questions about your beer. They will give you GREAT advice and insight into your brewing and help you brew better beer.

Stepping down from soap-box now....