Cost Of Your Brew $$

[rysa555]

I was just wondering how much on average your brew costs you, lets say 23 litres.

My last brew cost me $36 ($16 for coopers tin, $14 for malt and $6 for yeast) I thought that was quite expensive for a home brew.

I know costs can be cut when harvesting your own yeast which I will look to do in future. Are there any other cost cutting measures?

Obviously different brews will incur different expenses but I was curious to find out on AVERAGE but other people are paying.

Cheers

 

[kenlock]

I was just wondering how much on average your brew costs you, lets say 23 litres.

My last brew cost me $36 ($16 for coopers tin, $14 for malt and $6 for yeast) I thought that was quite expensive for a home brew.

I know costs can be cut when harvesting your own yeast which I will look to do in future. Are there any other cost cutting measures?

Obviously different brews will incur different expenses but I was curious to find out on AVERAGE but other people are paying.

Cheers

Try these threads:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=16154

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...c=22068&hl=

 

[roverfj1200]

As I am only can brewing right now the cost is $9.50 to $12.50 for Goo and $3.50 for Dex. Sinful yes but cheap..

 

[Trent]

5.5kg malt (usually 5kg maris and some crystal or something) at around $3.00 per kg - $17.50
50g bittering at around 12c per gram - $6
60g finishing at around 12c per gram $7.20
Wyeast pack (used 3 times) $5
Gas for heating and boilding - $8 (?)
30g dry hops - $3.60

Thats about $46 odd. VERY rough generalisation, but you get the picture. And I think that is cheap, cause it is top quality beer.
If ya wanna ask about Imperial Stouts or Barleywines, double the costs (roughly).
I am of the opinion that you can make cheap beer, or you can make good beer. Rarely can you do both at once.
The easiest cost cotting measures are to buy the cheapest grains/hops you can find, or use less of one or both. When it comes down to ten or 20 cents per bottle, I will take the more expensive route! Bulk buys and being very frugal with yeasts and stuff can help, but realistically, it just cost you a little over a dollar (maybe $1.20) per bottle, when the same sized bottles will cost you $4 at the bottlo, and your beer probably tastes better When it comes to beer, put in the best ingredients you can...
All the best
Trent

 

[Sammus]

Yeah anything decent is $40-$50 for a 23L batch. Can do it as low as about $25 depending on style (5kg malt, a conservative amount of hops and some dry yeast)

 

[Pollux]

mmmm, lets see, according to beersmith my next batch comes in at just over $32....

Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) (5.9 EBC) Grain 90.09 %
0.40 kg Crystal Malt -Bairds (110.0 EBC) Grain 7.21 %
0.15 kg Carared (Weyermann) (47.3 EBC) Grain 2.70 %
20.00 gm Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 11.1 IBU
10.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [11.50 %] (60 min) Hops 11.6 IBU
5.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [11.50 %] (20 min) Hops 3.5 IBU
20.00 gm Cascade [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 6.7 IBU
5.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [11.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
20.00 gm Cascade [5.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Safale US-05 (DCL Yeast #US-05) Yeast-Ale

Couldn't buy one case worth of decent beer at that price, this recipe will make 2.5 cases......

 

[Barramundi]

$16 for a coopers can seems a touch pricey to me ...

 

[Verbyla]

I don't usually find that i spend over $30

When i'm brewing beer it usually cost $14 for the kit, $6 for yeast, $4 for the sugar plus the cost of the caps and the carb drops which would add up to around $4-$5

Cider usually cost $24 for the juice, $5 for the yeast and $2 for the sugar

You could probably try and factor in $1 for the sanitiser used each time if you want to be picky

Still $36 for roughly 50-60 stubbies beats pay around the same price for just a slab :beer:

 

[ollave]

My last brew cost me $36 ($16 for coopers tin, $14 for malt and $6 for yeast) I thought that was quite expensive for a home brew.

$36 is about what you'd pay for a slab of cheapish commercial beer, including taxes. For that same outlay (excluding your time and equipment) you are getting 23 litres, which is rather more. With moderate skill those ingredients can produce something as good or better than that cheapish commercial brew. Where's the beef? :lol:

It would be kinda nice if one plastic bucket, a few reused PET bottles, a kit and a kilogram of sugar would match the quality of a respectable commercial brew, but to get that quality you start doing things like using malt not sugar with the kit, choosing better yeast, perhaps adding some hops, maybe racking to a second fermenter at some point ... and you're off down the slippery slope.

Brewing is one of my hobbies. It has as a bonus (but these discussions make it almost a bug!) that I might save some money by spending less cash on my brewing hobby than I would otherwise on beer. That remains to be proven, but it's at least possible in theory.

If my aim was to cut my beer budget in half, I'd just cut my beer budget in half. Probably to the benefit of my waistline.

Cheers!

 

[clean brewer]

First 10 AG brews have cost an average of about $28 a brew, I do buy Grain in Bulk, split Wyeast up(or use Ross's twin packs of yeast, quite cheap) and just got a fair few hops at a good price aswell...

Mind you, thats only Ingredient costs and beers of an average alc %..

:icon_cheers: CB

 

[pixelboy]

Barley wine i've got on the boil ATM is going to cost approx $46 for a 14l batch

But last time I checked you cant buy this stuff in the bottle shop.. or not mine anyway!

 

[Fourstar]

Drop the ABV of your beers and the price drops conciderably too.. or adjust the volume to keep the ABV up.

allot of 'cheap beers' to make all grain, anything low hopped is a good start, or low hopped and low ABV

e.g. do a Munich helles. 1 addtion of around 30g of hops. stright pils malt = cheap.

English mild, around 2.5-4kg of grain +20g of hops = even cheaper.

To keep the quality up, you have to scrifice somewhere, wether its abv or ibu they are usually the 2 to go to the wayside.

 

[manticle]

$30 -40.

Much more than when I was doing kits but the leap up in flavour is incredible, I have far more to do with it than just opening a tin and pouring in water and sugar and I really enjoy it. It also costs about 1/3 what I'd be paying to drink the beers I prefer at the same rate.

As suggested by fourstar - you could make lighter abv beers or less bitter styles to save money. Also I've found dried malt extract is slightly cheaper than liquid, even though there's less range.

Other tips include buying high alpha hops, buying in bulk, replacing some extract with base malt, reculturing yeast and finding somewhere that doesn't overcharge for cooper's tins, malt extract and yeast as is obvious your source is.

I know there's price variance between states and locales but most coopers tins I've bought have been between 10 and 11 (10.49 at k-mart I believe). $16 is a joke. Also my LHBS sell 1.5 LME for around $11.50 and 1 kg DLME for $9.50. $14 is overpriced.

 

[hoppinmad]

I was just wondering how much on average your brew costs you, lets say 23 litres.

My last brew cost me $36 ($16 for coopers tin, $14 for malt and $6 for yeast) I thought that was quite expensive for a home brew.

At $36 for 23 litres you are talking about $14/slab.... generously assuming each stubby contains 375ml

That seems like a pretty good deal to me!

 

[big d]

Opposite end of the scale here.
I try and brew to my taste and enjoyment so cost isnt a factor as yet.
When i lived in the Northern Territory a few years ago i paid a small fortune in freight to get stuff including grain from down south so now im down south i dont even worry so much about cost.Its just great to have a local (Gryphon Brewing)that is relatively near by to get goods and have a yarn and a few beers.

Cheers
Big D

 

[MHB]

Les the Weizguy and I have just been tossing a recipe back and forward to brew tomorrow, its a Rogue Imperial IPA clone, comes in at just over $100 for a 50 L batch, lets say we end up with 45 L packaged. Thats just the Malt, Hops and incidentals the yeast is a re-cultured Pack Man, figure around $120 all up.

60 x 750mL bottles end up costing $2each; they are like $40 a bottle for the commercial example.



Pretty important to compare apples with apples, I am dam sure I could make a fair stab at a XXX Gold clone for a lot less but I wont thanks.



$ arent the reason I brew.

MHB

 

[clean brewer]

I was looking at the Local Bottleshop Catalogue and a carton of VB is $39.99(9ltrs), my brews come out to pretty much fill a keg perfectly(19ltrs-2.1 cartons), so if I did a Brew that cost $50-$60, I would still be in front $20-$30 for the same amount of beer than buying 2 ctns of VB.. :beerbang:

:icon_cheers: CB

 

[Frank]

Les the Weizguy and I have just been tossing a recipe back and forward to brew tomorrow, it's a Rogue Imperial IPA clone.

Any chance to look at the recipe yet?
I have been looking for a big IPA recipe for a while.
Cheers

 

[manticle]

Apples with apples is good and I agree. I'm poor as a nun's cellmate but I like to make my brews as good as I can with the limited knowledge I have. Cost is secondary, extra knowledge is (almost) free, good brews are paramount. However, in comparing apples with apples, take into account that some people maybe just couldn't afford either a $100 brew OR a $40 bottle.

 

[parrja]

19 L batches:

2.75 Kg Malt extract $20
.5 Kg Steeped Grain $3
75g Hops $6
Yeast $4

Total $33 i.e. $15-$16 a carton for good beer. And certainly better quality than the $50 to $60 australian made "premium" beers.