The $20 Challenge

[HarryB]

Me and one of my brewing buddies came up with this a few days ago. Basically, the idea is that you have to make a batch of beer (20Lish, enough for a corny keg) and the total ingredients (grain + hops + yeast) must come to $20 or less. I've worked out that I'd be able to use 4kg of basic Aussie base malt (IMC pils and pale), about 20g of hops and a fermentis (or similar) dry yeast. If i was to add a small amount of specialty grains, the total grain bill would be more like 3.6kg-3.8kg. Obviously we're talking about mild strength beers here (about 4% abv i suppose). We're not doing this to save a buck, just seeing how cheap we can make a good quality session beer.

Has anyone tried anything like this before?

Here is an example recipe (english pale ale):

- 3.2kg IMC pale, 400g light crystal, 10g target (12%) @ 60, 10g EKG (5%) @ 5, S04



Thoughts? recipe suggestions?

(obviously adding sugar would be an option too)

 

[reviled]

My english bitters when punched into Beersmith normally come up with a price of $15-$25

 

[HarryB]

Ok well i should point out that my lhbs has the following prices:
$3.50 per kilo for base malt (up to $5.50/kilo depending on grain)
most hops: 8c/g
dry yeast: $4.40 ( i think)

so I was planning on $14 of grain, $1.60 or hops and $4.40 in yeast.

I don't buy in bulk or anything.

 

[Dave86]

AndrewQLD's Coopers Pale Ale Clone would work out pretty cheap. Reculture yourself some yeast from a stubbie of CPA or use a dry yeast, should be fairly tasty

 

[randyrob]

are you also taking into account gas, electricity, sanitizers etc?

my house ale works out to be about 90c a litre inc all the above things....

 

[Wardhog]

Read up on yeast ranching, you could reduce the cost of yeast per batch down to a very small number. It's just that these economics don't work with only 1 batch.

 

[reviled]

are you also taking into account gas, electricity, sanitizers etc?

Thats just silly, those get written off as a business expense hahaha

 

[newguy]

Reminds me of BURRP - Brewing Under Really Ridiculous Parameters. A fun challenge my club runs each year. The rules are simple: you are allowed to start with 4.5 kg of pale 2 row, no other grain is allowed. You're allowed to roast/stew/whatever a portion or all of your grain in order to make homemade crystal, brown, black, etc malt. Yeast & hops are up to the individual. You can make a full batch of low strength beer or a small (10l or less) batch of superstrength stuff. The idea behind the original BURRP was to see what unique brews could be made with essentially the same starting ingredients. In subsequent years we've added stipulations. One year you had to use a box of breakfast cereal in addition to the grain (the cocoa puffs porter was simply stunning), another year it was any root vegetable. We've also tried "anything but hops" and last year you could add any liqueur or hard alcohol to the beer.

Go for it - it's really quite fun and a big learning experience. I'd suggest you forego the full size batch (20ish litres) requirement, though. You'll find that the results are much more creative that way.

 

[PostModern]

Apart from sugar ($1.46 for 2Kg at Woollies atm), you could look at non malt mash adjuncts like rice. Way cheap!

 

[jeremy]

Apart from sugar ($1.46 for 2Kg at Woollies atm), you could look at non malt mash adjuncts like rice. Way cheap!

Or better yet a tin of home brand draught, and a kilo of table sugar. Should get out of it under $10...

 

[HarryB]

Or better yet a tin of home brand draught, and a kilo of table sugar. Should get out of it under $10...

with respect, we're not trying to make the cheapest k+k type beer possible. kind of defeats the purpose. hell, we could just boilup 3kg of sugar/honey etc and go moonshine style and it would be under $5....

newguy, i love the idea of starting off with the same grain and toasting/roasting various amounts!!

wrdhog, yes i have a small collection of yeasts in the fridge - good thinking.

 

[Tony]

This is what i would do. Great beer and cheap, simple and quaffable.

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 20.00 Wort Size (L): 20.00
Total Grain (kg): 4.00
Anticipated OG: 1.048 Plato: 11.81
Anticipated EBC: 9.8
Anticipated IBU: 26.8
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
100.0 4.00 kg. JWM Traditional Ale Malt Australia 1.038 7

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.00 g. Pride of Ringwood Pellet 10.20 26.8 45 min.


Yeast
-----

US-05



Cheers

 

[Swinging Beef]

sounds like a cool idea.
I like it.
But I reckon you need to make stipulations.
Some of us get our ingredients waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than others.
Excluding when I have used a full packet/tube or Wyeast or Whitelabs, I do beleive all my AG brews come in under $20 for 20 litres, except for the Belgian ones.

 

[jeremy]

with respect, we're not trying to make the cheapest k+k type beer possible. kind of defeats the purpose. hell, we could just boilup 3kg of sugar/honey etc and go moonshine style and it would be under $5....

newguy, i love the idea of starting off with the same grain and toasting/roasting various amounts!!

wrdhog, yes i have a small collection of yeasts in the fridge - good thinking.

Yeah, fair cop. I was just referencing the simple sugar comment, as in, if you are going to use cheap adjuncts and simple sugars to make it cheaper, why not.... if you know what i mean. No disrespect to the original comment either, definately worth a mention. After all, the majority of beers on the market (and the most popular beers) use this method to keep it cheap (amongst other things). And I would be interested to know what a half mash, half sugar brew would taste like!

(Meaning of course half mashed half simple sugar, no DME, not just your average Partial)

 

[katzke]

sounds like a cool idea.
I like it.
But I reckon you need to make stipulations.
Some of us get our ingredients waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than others.
Excluding when I have used a full packet/tube or Wyeast or Whitelabs, I do beleive all my AG brews come in under $20 for 20 litres, except for the Belgian ones.

Lucky Bass poop.

My last 2 brews came to $64US and I will have a bit of hops left over. About 9 bucks worth. And I used dry yeast.

 

[white.grant]

My last few batches of hefeweizen have been under $20 per 21L batch.

I bought my last batch of malt from my LHBS in bulk (25kg bags) which delivers the Weyerman pils into the mill at 3.08 per kilo and the Aussie wheat at 2.72 per kilo, plus about 3-4 bucks for a handful of hallertau.

The big saving is the yeast which I've been harvesting and repitching and have now got 6 brews out of a single smack pack of 3068 (and it was a $9 special from Ross. ) so that's $1.50 per pitch. Got to be happy with that .


cheers

grant

 

[Fourstar]

I'd definitely go the Adjunct path, a cream ale is perfect for this.

OG 1.045

65% Ale Malt
12% Pils
15% Corn
8% Table Sugar

Low Hoping. I used US Northern Brewer but you can take you're pick from whats on hand.

8IBU @ 60 Min
12IBU @ 30 Min
10g @ flameout

Ferment w/ US05

YUMM

My total cost for this style was around $17~ grain/adjunct/hops/yeast.

I'd definitely brew it again!

 

[~MikE]

My coopers pale ale clone...
20L
pilsner malt 3.8kg ~$9
wheat malt 200g ~$0.4
crystal malt 50g 10c?
30g POR ~$2.5
yeast (i keep stock of this) culturing consumables (one plate and DME for a starter) ~$1-2?
LPG ~$2?
total $15-17?

 

[bigholty]

I'd love to try giving a group of people 5kg of grain, 50g of hops and a pouch of yeast each (all the same) and seeing what variation could be achieved purely through manipulating the process. You all get together three months later and see where everyone else ended up!

 

[buttersd70]

2 words....Jump mash. Super cheap, but dead hard to get right.