Cost effectiveness of ingredients - Kit vs Extract vs All Grain?

[panzerd18]

After coming home from my homebrew store and paying around $46 worth of ingredients for a Kit beer, I was wondering what the cost effectiveness would be compared to Extract and All Grain?

Excluding equipment costs, and basing the answer purely on ingredient costs per 23 litre batch, which is the cheapest to make between Kit, Extract and All Grain?

 

[Yob]

Plenty of threads on this already, ag shits on kits and bits, buy in bulk and it's under $1/L for me I rekon.. Haven't fully priced it inclusive of gas and power but can't make too much difference

 

[paulyman]

My extract brews were costing me the same for a 23L batch, but excluding postage they would have been closer to $36. Now that I've switched to all grain, am on the grain bill at the LHBS and am buying hops in larger quantities from said store my costs have dropped dramatically to the $25 ish mark. I could go even lower by getting a mill and bulk buying grain, but the grain book isn't too bad and I get the grain milled as part of the package deal.

The biggest cost savings for me have been the bulk buying. For kits and extract the coopers store often gives you free delivery and a cheaper price if you join up.

#edit - Yob said it more efficiently than my ramblings.

 

[Bomber Watson]

When you buy hops in bulk (I buy them off the fine lad in post #2) and re use your yeast cake, extract is shit tonnes cheaper than kits using LME. Waiting for cheeky peak to get more DME in so i can do a bit of a BB there and it will be cheaper again....And the product is 10000% better without the isohops and with less guesswork as to the bittering your getting from each addition.

Most expensive extract i do atm which has 3 tins of LME and about 150gm of hops works out to <$40, and is well and above anything you will get with a kit...Average kit and bit type recipe works out to ~$25 and tastes way better.

Coopers kits used to be alright value, but i havnt purchased one since i discovered there malt products were hallal certified. Its against my religion to send money to other countries whilst buying an Australian made product.

Time wise, doesnt take to much longer, depending on what your doing with your kits. If your time poor like me with a full time job, a contract job on the side, as well as a few other little jobs on the go, and work out what you could be making working on them as opposed to brewing...This is a plus.

Have yet to go AG, and I cant buy grain anywhere locally thats not ludicrous. Only LHBS i have wants $14 for 1kg of crystal for example. Postage (for me) on a 25kg bag is around $35 so really bumps the price of a ~$50 bag of 2 row up quiet a bit....Doing the sums it would still work out a bit cheaper than extract....But "brewday" will go from about 2 hours from getting out of the couch to cleanup to 6ish from what i gather, plus more cleanup, etc, so time wise...Im happy with the tradeoff atm.

Cheers.

 

[danestead]

12 years ago when I was 18 and did half a dozen kit brews it used to cost me about $10 for the tin and a dollar or 2 for caps and carb drops. It was still barely worth drinking but was as cheap as goon and tasted just marginally better!

 

[Bomber Watson]

I was ust thinking that after posting, you can get down to about 30c a tallie....15c a schooner, with a kit on sale at IGA and a kilo of sugar....And I did do this back in the dark ages....But **** that now days haha.

 

[droid]

in my experience a tin of lme and some sugar is the cheapest way to make beer, grain so far has cost way more, for starters I cant go to the supermarket and buy it

still all grain tho because imho it tastes better and is more flexible, but have gone back to extract for fast beer and its alright

but that wasn't your question

happy for someone to point me towards a place that can kit me up with 5kg of grain and some yeast for less than $15

<edit> kits for me have been hideou$ely expen$ive, once brought two heineken kits (mixed them together for one big batch) and did my one and only open top ferment - yep poored 50ltrs and at least $60 down the drain....dark days

 

[danestead]

in my experience a tin of lme and some sugar is the cheapest way to make beer

my grain so far has cost me way more, for starters I cant go to the supermarket and buy it

I still all grain tho, but have gone back to extract for fast beer

but that wasn't your question

happy for someone to point me towards a place that can kit me up with 5kg of grain and some yeast for less than $15

You can get Barrett Burston 25kg bags for $44 from a bloke south of Perth which works out to $8.80 for 5kg. Add $6 for US-05 and you are set! You might want to put some hops in it though!

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Getting sacks of JW malt for less than $50 for 25kg, is $2 per kg, I use 5.5kg per brew (with the other .5 being spec malts at about $2.50 per kg), so that's $11.25 for malt, yeast I use about 3 batches from one pack of US05 or BRY97, so that's down to $1.50 and the hops cost me very little, I factor in about $4-6 for an IPA, less for a less hoppy variety, because I buy in bulk and pick up what's on special.

So for an AIPA, I'll spend less than $20 for 25L, for a British style beer, it goes down to around $10, due to lower OG, less hops, etc.

 

[Blind Dog]

The average for me (AG) is less than $30 per 19L batch fully costed for ingredients, incl cleaning, sanitiser, co2 etc. and an allowance for electricity used. If I reused yeast, bought grain via bulk buys, or just more AU grain as opposed to Weyermann, TF etc that would drop to under $20.

 

[menoetes]

I bulk buy my hops and extract, recycle my yeast and buy all my grains from a good supplier with cheap postage (National Homebrew; site sponsor). Despite the fact my efficiency (the amount of fermentable malt I get out of my grains) isn't super high, all grain brewing still comes out ahead on the over-all cost compared to extract.

However it's not by much and as I buy my liquid malt in 15kg growlers from the same source as my grains, I find partial brews make up for the small cost difference in the amount of time spent in brewing.

Having said that, if I purchased grains in bulk as I do liquid extract, I'm sure the grains would come out well ahead again in dollar value. For sheer cost, not considering time (in the case of my slower cheap ghetto brewing methods) grain shits all over extract.

The lesson IMHO is; extract brewing will always be faster than grain but grain will always be cheaper. You just need to decide how much your free time is worth I guess...

 

[manticle]

My experience is that extract is the most expensive if you discount equipment (and that depends on desired setup).

That said, it's cheaper than bought beer of similar quality (if you make good beer) and I think many brewers just get to a point where making good beer is more important than making cheap beer. Bulk ingredients and yeast reculturing will save coin but you can do that with extract too.

 

[buckerooni]

I recall an old recipe posted on this forum titled along the lines of 'desperation draught' which was a can of farmland draught & packet tin yeast and a bunch of sugar coming in at around $12. Hard to beat cost wise but depending on your tastes, hard to stomach taste wise

From a pure cost perspective, you'd be pressed to throw less money at a 23L homebrew.

A beer like this can be supplemented a-la black'n'tan style with some Tun Bitter to have the best of both home and professional brewing :unsure:

 

[wynnum1]

ALL grain is cheap if buy in bulk and do not count labor costs.

 

[manticle]

Why would anyone factor in labour costs for a hobby they enjoy?

 

[petesbrew]

Why would anyone factor in labour costs for a hobby they enjoy?

Labour costs only come into it if you're taking leave.

 

[Busta]

I brew all grain because I enjoy the process and the product so happy to put the time in.

Back of the envelope calculations (38 L batch) for a couple my go to brews are:
Hefeweizen $39 (all base malt and only hopped to 15IBU)
APA $65 (1.5kg of specialty malt and 250g of hops)
Oatmeal Stout $50 (2.25kg of specialty malt but only 100g of hops)

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Extract was the most expensive for me by a mile.

Goo is cheaper but again, it's a taste thing for me.

So AG beats on a cost vs quality basis every time, which is the paremeters I choose to use to quantify my hobby.

 

[droid]

right well I must have been paying through the nose, I read AG was cheaper but it hasn't turned out that way
gonna have to work something out

 

[hwall95]

I find all grain is far cheaper and generally costs me $25-$30 for grains and yeast + $3-$15 for hops as I buy in bulk from Yob.

Even then if I reuse yeast it becomes a lot cheaper. Compared to my extract batches that generally ended up being $40-$60.

Even though I've only just recently got into all grain, IMO I really prefer all grain as you have a greater control over all aspects of the beer and you are actually brewing properly, rather then off-shooting the malt production to someone else.

Sidenote: All grain also gives a few kilos of great fertiliser to keep you plants happy as well.