Cost Of Your Brew $$

[Sammus]

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.

Ooh careful what you say. Sounds like your equating quality with abv and bitterness

 

[manticle]

To me it sounds like he's saying in order to keep using quality ingredients and thus retain quality but keep costs lower you may have to lose a little off the abv or bitterness.

 

[Pumpy]

another link including oncosts

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...c=30684&hl=



Pumpy

 

[newguy]

42l of finished beer (OG 1.050) using only pale 2 row costs me:

8kg malt x $0.96/kg = $7.68
approx. $1.50 - $6.00 for hops, depending on style
1 wyeast smack pack @ $9.00 but reused 3x = $3.00 for yeast
a 9kg propane tank costs $15 to fill and I get 3 batches out of one tank, plus a couple of weeks on the BBQ = $5.00 for propane
plus a fudge factor to account for electricity (I have an electric HERMS), water, and specialty grains (which cost me no more than $2.40/kg) I'll guess is about $6/batch on average

Worst case total = $27.68 for 42l, which works out to about $0.33 per 500ml serving. Cheaper than koolaid. If I'm brewing something ridiculously strong like a barleywine or RIS or something like that, my grain bill roughly doubles so that my cost is about $35-$40 at most.

 

[warra48]

I set all my prices in my BeerSmith inventory to $0.00. Free Beer !
I'm not really concerned with what it costs me, but it certainly is cheaper than store bought beer.

Seriously, I brew as a hobby. Plus I get beer I enjoy drinking, and which is better, IMHO, than most of what is available commercially.

 

[Trent]

42l of finished beer (OG 1.050) using only pale 2 row costs me:

8kg malt x $0.96/kg = $7.68
approx. $1.50 - $6.00 for hops, depending on style
1 wyeast smack pack @ $9.00 but reused 3x = $3.00 for yeast
a 9kg propane tank costs $15 to fill and I get 3 batches out of one tank, plus a couple of weeks on the BBQ = $5.00 for propane
plus a fudge factor to account for electricity (I have an electric HERMS), water, and specialty grains (which cost me no more than $2.40/kg) I'll guess is about $6/batch on average

Worst case total = $27.68 for 42l, which works out to about $0.33 per 500ml serving. Cheaper than koolaid. If I'm brewing something ridiculously strong like a barleywine or RIS or something like that, my grain bill roughly doubles so that my cost is about $35-$40 at most.

Newguy
You guys are lucky in Canada, as the cost of ingredients is quite low, (and you can buy world class commercial beers for about 1/3 of the price they cost us here, my favourite example being Unibroue's Don de Dieu 750mL at $5.95 over there, and around $20 here. Or Phillip's Amnesiac IIPA - my favourite IIPA in the world - at around $4.50/650mL bottle - and we cant even get it. A comparable, and every bit as good, IIPA here from Murray's will set you back around $18 for a 750mL. Most the Unibroue's are available here now at $28 for a 4 pack of 330mL bottles. But I digress...)
Cheap pale malt here is around $2.50/kg, you may be super lucky and get it at $2 on very rare occasions. Wyeast costs us $15.95 a pack, and its about $25 to refill a 9kg propane tank. Hops area also around 10-20c a gram.
So it looks like you guys can brew stuff for approx half the cost of us - my waistline would expand quickly if I lived and brewed over there :lol:
All the best
Trent

 

[white.grant]

Personally I don't count the cost of my brewing so much, like others have said, it's my hobby. But I do like to brew effectively and efficiently and that mostly goes down to planning.

There's an article in the latest BYO magazine about saving money while you brew. It's discussed on a recent podcast at Basic brewing radio. A lot of the approaches seem pretty helpful to me, such as buying your grain and hops in bulk, and then making effective use of them. If you don't need a whole sack of grain then it may be possible to share the purchase with a friend.

A few of the other tips include saving and reusing yeasts and structuring your brewing regime so that you can get the most out of them.

Brewing bigger batches can achieve economies of scale, not just in time, but also in energy use.

They also mention the plunger method of infusing aroma hops which can then be reused for bittering. It apparently works.

cheers

grant

 

[Trent]

Oh yeah,
One more thing. To the fella that started the thread, if you are still doing K+K's, maybe think about moving onto extract beers?
1 x 1.5kg of coopers pale unhopped extract maybe $10?
500g DME around $5?
45g challenger hops to bitter $6
S-04 $4

Thats around $25. If you feel really generous, add 30g of EKG at flameout/when you turn off the stovetop - $5. So, $25-30, and you will have a very tasty english bitter...
Trent

 

[flattop]

3 AG's under the belt, the first 2 were the same recipie, around $28 each the 2nd was a slightly more complex brew with more specialty grains came in at around $45 all came in at about 22litres, so not too bad compared to megaswill prices per volume.

 

[Weizguy]

I apologise up front for disparaging this topic, but for many brewers out there it's NOT about the cost.

This is especially true if you're brewing beer that you just can't purchase anywhere in the country.
Be it an unusual clone or a style that we don't see here (such as Dampfbier), I can't see how moeny comes in as a significant factor. Granted, if you can't afford to buy the ingredients and process them into beer, then you have a problem, but that's as far as it goes for me regarding cost.

It's about the beer, and cost is a secondary factor.

Having said that, I have bought a grain mill (yeah, I won't go on about it), and have been buying grain at the right price, when available. I bought some Barrett Burston ale malt for $2 per kilo, so that will help decrease the price of my ales, and I got some JW wheat malt for about the same price, due to an opportunity which arose at short notice.
I'm also a yeast farmer, but happy to buy new yeast as required, too.
The only thing I spend more money on is the hops and specialty grain. I trust my lhbs to maintain them in fresher condition than I ever could at home, especially if I bought a bulk lot of hops.

I made a batch of Arrogant ******* clone and the cost would have been under $40, considering the bulk grains and low amount of specialty grain, and recultured yeast. Even for a hoppy beer like this at a gravity of 1.060-ish, you have to admit that 24 litres of this beer is remarkable value.
And you can't buy this beer here, even if you wanted to...

my 2 cents worth
Les (now off to the lhbs to bottle some Baltic porter and drink some Old Speckled Hen)

 

[clean brewer]

I'm not really concerned with what it costs me, but it certainly is cheaper than store bought beer.

Im not concerned either but keeping a record of what it costs gives me good back-up with the missus when I buy more equipment.. :unsure: "See honey, its only costing $15 a carton so with the savings, I bought this to make more cheaper beer"

A lot of the approaches seem pretty helpful to me, such as buying your grain and hops in bulk, and then making effective use of them.

An example of Grain.. A Bulk Buy Sack of Galaxy(25kg) comes in at $1.86kg, to buy it 1kg at a time is $4.00kg, so thats $2.14 difference.. :huh:

So a 5kg batch of beer, you could save $10.70 just by buying in bulk..

 

[newguy]

Newguy
You guys are lucky in Canada, as the cost of ingredients is quite low, (and you can buy world class commercial beers for about 1/3 of the price they cost us here, my favourite example being Unibroue's Don de Dieu 750mL at $5.95 over there, and around $20 here. Or Phillip's Amnesiac IIPA - my favourite IIPA in the world - at around $4.50/650mL bottle - and we cant even get it. A comparable, and every bit as good, IIPA here from Murray's will set you back around $18 for a 750mL. Most the Unibroue's are available here now at $28 for a 4 pack of 330mL bottles. But I digress...)
Cheap pale malt here is around $2.50/kg, you may be super lucky and get it at $2 on very rare occasions. Wyeast costs us $15.95 a pack, and its about $25 to refill a 9kg propane tank. Hops area also around 10-20c a gram.
So it looks like you guys can brew stuff for approx half the cost of us - my waistline would expand quickly if I lived and brewed over there :lol:

Actually the reason my cost is so cheap all comes down to buying in bulk either from a maltster or from a wholesale distributor. If I bought my malt from a HBS I'd be paying $5/kg for ordinary 2 row and $6/kg for specialty malt. Given our exchange rate, that's something like $6-7 AUD per kg. I'm lucky in that the distributor that serves most of western Canada is only 40 minutes from my home town; I stock up whenever I'm back home. If it weren't for them, I'd be paying through the nose for my malt.

I just planted 9 hop rhizomes about a month ago. Hopefully they all survived the trip in the mail from Oregon. If they did then my hop budget will be cut significantly. Regarding yeast, I actually haven't bought any for over 2 years now. Wyeast and White Labs sponsor most of the competitions around here and I've been able to win more smack packs and vials than I can use.

I don't buy very much commercial stuff anymore - just the odd bottle of something special every now and again. And every time I do I can't help but think "this one bottle is a third the cost of a whole batch!"

 

[svyturys]

Just did a comparison of yeast and hop pellet costs between two retailers.
Us o5....retailer #1 charges $6.95. retailer #2 $4.90

S-23.....retailer #1 charges $7.95. retailer #2 $5.20

Retailer #1 charged a blanket $17.90 for 100gr amounts of any hop pellet.

Retailer#2 charged $7.95 for 80gr. lots with about two exceptions across the range where he charged $12.95 for an 80gr pack.

As far as I'm concerned these are whopping big differences and shows that you can cut costs dramatically by shopping around.
(There's one joint that sells equipment such as the superautomatica bottle capper at 2/3rds the cost elsewhere. No prize in guessing where I get my equipment from.)
Cheers

 

[Fourstar]

Ooh careful what you say. Sounds like your equating quality with abv and bitterness

What are the most expensive parts of a batch? Malt + Hops.

Low ABV = Less Malt.
Low IBU = Less Hops.

As i said, there are styles which fall into this category (some of which i like to brew often, cream ales, Helles, Mild etc). But as you should know, majority of people get into homebrewing to replicate their choice of swill at a LOWER cost and a higher ABV.

Reducing your malt content and hop content will be the fastest way to reduce your cost, for 9/10 novice 'cookie-cutter' HB'ers this WILL usually end up with a reduced quality by substituting malt with sucrose and other corner cutting like lack of sanitisation.

 

[marlow_coates]

When we AG brew it is about $60 (give or take $10) for each brew and we get about 60L in the fermenter. All heavy beers so far (min of 5%ABV anyway).

We tend to buy two brews worth of grain and hops each order. This is done with a mate as a combined activity.

We each do our own kits and bits brewing at home though, and in general mine cost about $35 (give or take $5) for about 25L finished beer.

The AG is significantly better, but it is difficult getting a time we can both dedicate to brewing nowadays.
So the AG is cheaper and better but more inconvenient. It is definately a labour of love.

I do however, really enjoy the kit's and bit's beers I do here, and would still prefer them to commercial beers (cheaper ones).

I'll agree with what others have said though, a highly hopped specialty beer can pump up costs significantly, as opposed to a simple grain, low IBU beer, but it is always worth it in my opinion.

 

[Mantis]

I shop around for the best prices, and pick up 25kg bags of grain when in Melbourne. Also buying US-05 which I use in most brews in 500gm blocks cuts the price of yeast a lot.
But I dont really give a hoot how much each particular brew costs.

 

[Jason76]

When I started out I used to just buy a Kit for around $15 and a Brew Booster for $6.50, now that I've been reading up on the forums I can spend up to $40 on a Brew...
All comes down to what extra ingredients/yeast you want to add to your wort for flavour !

 

[DiscoStu]

Since I went all grain my cheapest has been an English mild at $29 using yeast cultured from a case swap bottle and my most expensive was a Belgian Dubbel at $65 including buying a white labs yeast. Either way good value for money compared to even the cheapest commercial beer.

 

[Hutch]

Usually I anticipate $30-$40 per AG batch all up.

...however, my latest came in at $14 for 23Ltrs - a Coopers Pale Ale clone (that's 23cents per stubby!)
5kg Powels Pilsner Malt ($10)
15gm Super Pride hop pellets ($1.50)
Yeast Cultured from Coopers Stubby ($2.50)

As a simple session beer, this one is most enjoyable. Although the Powels has poor efficiency, it is still a very good malt.
G&G have it for $49 per 25kg sack - incredibly good value compared to other domestic malts.

2c.

 

[Alby]

IM a kit brewer and given freight costs to get ingredients up here I reckon it costs me a bit more than a lot of you lucky enough to live in an area where the LHBS has some competition.

I was planning on doing a Coopers wheat but the cost put me off
1x 1.7kg can coopers wheat beer goo $18.50
1 x 1.5kg can coopers what malt $13.50
yeast $7

thats already $39 and I havent added any hops, grains or other fermentable....bugger that I thought and spent $40 on an ESB 3kg. Too much to pay for the can, but competitively priced compared to the alternative!! not as much fun or satisfaction though...Ive only started adding 'bits' to my kits and I really missed the whole experience of steeping, straining and boiling....and I also missed out on my whole house smelling like hops for a day...one of my favourite parts of brewing!