What's your cost of a 5 gallon batch?

I used to buy the $40 kits from Brewer's Best, then switched over to the Barley & Vine clones for about $50 per 5 gallons. Then to try and cut costs, I finally bought ingredients from my local home brew shop to make a Hoegaarden clone, but the cost was still $45 for 5 gallons (used 6 pounds DME).

I thought that buying the ingredients would cut costs at least a little. What's the deal?

All grain is where its at. DME is ridiculously expensive. Kits are also a waste of money. Buy a good recipe book and go from there. But I dont think you will see any cheaper prices till you are all grain. I pay about $15~$30 a batch usually. I can make a Miller Lite clone for $12

Another money saving step is washing your liquid yeast. Its not hard and you will have quite the yeast arsenal built up before you know it and no more buying that strain for about a year!

Yep, if you want to cut costs go all grain. You can build a batch sparge mashtun for fairly cheap. It will actually pay for itself in just a few batches.

Fuzzymittenbrewing said:

I can make a Miller Lite clone for $12

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You can't give rednecks money because that's what they do with it: go out and make Miller Lite clones!

Credit to Jeff Foxworthy:

podz said:

You can't give rednecks money because that's what they do with it: go out and make Miller Lite clones!

Credit to Jeff Foxworthy:

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1I3goR2CSk

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And its still better than what you buy in the store. And im pretty far from being a redneck

Any recipe book suggestions?

I'm brewing my first time this weekend. I am set up for AG and just recieved my grains and what not in the mail. $38 total including caps, yeast fuel, and alc booster on top of the grain, hops and yeast. Not tok bad IMO. AHS delivers recipe kits free.

I plan on buying @MLHBS for my next batch to cut cost.

Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Z. All recipes can be easily brewed with extract/partial mash or all grain.

Also, I brew mostly extract and only use bulk LME from my home brew shop. I usually dont have to buy yeast and my costs average $35 or so. Buying bulk hops is a saver as well.

When I do all grain, it is shockingly cheaper though.

Jupapabear said:

Any recipe book suggestions?

I'm brewing my first time this weekend. I am set up for AG and just recieved my grains and what not in the mail. $38 total including caps, yeast fuel, and alc booster on top of the grain, hops and yeast. Not tok bad IMO. AHS delivers recipe kits free.

I plan on buying @MLHBS for my next batch to cut cost.

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Once you have brewed all the beers in the recipe section on here you can look for a book but until then I suggest you try a few. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f82/

I just bought 20 lb 2 row,1.5 lb crystal 40, 1.5 lb Munich, 1 lb crystal 120, 1 lb victory, 1 oz chinook, 4 oz cascade, 3 oz centennial, 1 oz magnum and 2 vials of San Diego Super (wlp090) for an amber and a pale ale for $65.00. You don't have to invest all of the money in equipment up front to do all grain. I BIAB and am able to save on grain as opposed to extract.

RM-MN said:

Once you have brewed all the beers in the recipe section on here you can look for a book but until then I suggest you try a few. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f82/

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I am most intrigued by the Oirats Strong Ale!

If all grain is not an option for you, then I would look into bulk buys for hops and as stated start washing yeast.

I buy my base malt in bulk, wash my yeast and buy hops in bulk whenever possible and I can normally brew 10 gallons for around $45.

Find a few styles you like that use similar hops and yeast then you can build recipes around those so you don't feel like you bought a pound if hops for 1 brew.

Yes, all grain is the real answer to saving money - eventually. There's a higher initial outlay, but the improvement you get in your results is worth it, anyway.

Buying malt in bulk is a big part of that, but it is easy to overdo it. Again, the initial outlay is high, but if you get into a group buy with a local club, you can get even the expensive malts for about $1 per pound or less. You generally don't want to buy specialty malts this way, but foe the base malts it is well worth it. You'll need a malt mill, but again, you'll get better results crushing your own grains in most cases anyway.

morebeer.com

Morebeer also puts the recipes for most of their kits on their site - look in the "Documents" section for the kits. Some of their extract kits are a lot cheaper than $40 as well, particularly if you wash yeast and combine several kits in one order to get the free shipping.

Buying the pale LME/DME and a few common hops online, then getting the speciality extracts/steeping grains and hops at your LHBS should bring the price down without losing the option for spontaneous brew days.

Jupapabear said:

Any recipe book suggestions?

I'm brewing my first time this weekend. I am set up for AG and just recieved my grains and what not in the mail. $38 total including caps, yeast fuel, and alc booster on top of the grain, hops and yeast. Not tok bad IMO. AHS delivers recipe kits free.

I plan on buying @MLHBS for my next batch to cut cost.

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Clone Brews. I use it as a guide to writing my own most times

Big fan of more beer .com but they just jacked the prices of the kits in the " 10 beers for .50c a beer" area.Now they call it 10 kits with yeast. Vienna lager went about $7 a kit i think. Loved their products and pricing prior to now.Guess we have to pay for the east coast warehouse .

Plus if you have a lhbs use it! Why would you give your business to a online vendor???

newbrewer001 said:

Big fan of more beer .com but they just jacked the prices of the kits in the " 10 beers for .50c a beer" area.Now they call it 10 kits with yeast. Vienna lager went about $7 a kit i think. Loved their products and pricing prior to now.Guess we have to pay for the east coast warehouse .

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Wow.. they had to have changed that in the last couple of days.. SWMBO ordered a couple kits from the "beers less than 50 cents" category just this past Sunday.

I never noticed that extract kits were more expensive... makes sense though, since you're paying for the convenience of not having to mash.

Fuzzymittenbrewing said:

...I can make a Miller Lite clone for $12

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My Miller Lite clone is made for free. About 8 hours after an evening of drinking real beer.

But on topic . . . seems like when I go to my LHBS I would out around $30, depending of course on what I'm making.

I'm going to start saving my yeast I think. A packet of yeast is $4 or $5

NickTheGreat said:

My Miller Lite clone is made for free. About 8 hours after an evening of drinking real beer.

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It was an example but get on your "I hate bmc" highhorse if you must. :smack:

Fuzzymittenbrewing said:

Plus if you have a lhbs use it! Why would you give your business to a online vendor???

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because their ingredients sit on the shelf and the hops are yellowish not green.

EDIT: aaaaand, 70% of yeast is past its prime. My cost is about 40-60 depending on what method i'm doing

TheSmithsEra said:

because their ingredients sit on the shelf and the hops are yellowish not green.

EDIT: aaaaand, 70% of yeast is past its prime. My cost is about 40-60 depending on what method i'm doing

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Bummer you have a crappy store

Fuzzymittenbrewing said:

Bummer you have a crappy store

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+1 ^ Your LHBS must not be too good. Our yeast is constantly fresh and I am in Canada.

Fuzzymittenbrewing said:

Clone Brews. I use it as a guide to writing my own most times

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Thanks, its now on my list.

My partial mash pale ales are about $17. I have a LHBS with killer prices though.

My citra apa was essentially free since I already had everything. But were I to avg the cost of a session ale I would put it somewhere between $8-12/batch.

spaceyaquarius said:

I used to buy the $40 kits from Brewer's Best, then switched over to the Barley & Vine clones for about $50 per 5 gallons. Then to try and cut costs, I finally bought ingredients from my local home brew shop to make a Hoegaarden clone, but the cost was still $45 for 5 gallons (used 6 pounds DME).

I thought that buying the ingredients would cut costs at least a little. What's the deal?

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I'd have to agree with the majority here. All grain can save you quite a bit as you buy your base malt in bulk, then just pick up the specialty malts and hops as needed. This saves a ton of money. For example, I just brewed Midwests Pumpkin ALe. I think the kit was around $27 or so. But when you factor in the pumpkins I needed to get, plus vanilla beans, I was up to around $37.

This weekend my son and I are brewing an all grain version of Southern Tiers Pumking and my cost will come out to around $22-$24 or so. That will yield me a 5 gallon keg.

I probalby could save a bit more buying a few specialty grains and hops in bulk, but I like to try different recipes and experiment, so this works for me.

cheers!

It depends on what I am making. You can make a great Bavarian hefe for about $20. Definitely the stronger and more hops can cost a lot more money, especially if I am making a super hoppy IPA it can cost $50. Washing yeast is a huge money saver.

The gluten free stout I just bought for, is looking about $40 with farmed yeast. It's ballpark with a comparable glutenous extract brew.

Look into the kits from Austin Homebrew Store. They have z great brewing on a budget series (ipa, pale ale, stout, kolsch, and brown) all at around 25$ w/o yeast.
I have built up a yeast library so yeast I'd free for me. But I have found that these kits make great beer and you can use as cheap bases.

Ex. I added some dry hopping to the kolsch to make z great summertime beer. Recently added 1.5 lb of oats to the stout to make my Xmas oatmeal stout

But check out Austin homebrew

Ya know...I have no idea what it costs to brew my own beer, and frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I brew what I like and have fun doin' it! BTW...support your LHBS.

stu4stew said:

Look into the kits from Austin Homebrew Store. They have z great brewing on a budget series (ipa, pale ale, stout, kolsch, and brown) all at around 25$ w/o yeast.
I have built up a yeast library so yeast I'd free for me. But I have found that these kits make great beer and you can use as cheap bases.

Ex. I added some dry hopping to the kolsch to make z great summertime beer. Recently added 1.5 lb of oats to the stout to make my Xmas oatmeal stout

But check out Austin homebrew

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They have free shipping on kits too. I'll be brewing their fireman#4 clone on Sunday.

All extract / steeping grains, 5 gal batches, including bottle caps, sanitizers, etc. are costing me anywhere from $30 to $60, depending on ABV and amount of hops. Typical IPA running me $45-50 or so.

(I do work in a food/pharma lab though, so salts, finings, DI water, dextrose, nutrients, etc. luckily cost me nothing)

If I start buying 3-4 batchs' worth at a time, I might save a few bucks, but it doesn't really seem like there's that much bulk savings to be had with bulk extract buying. I could see saving a few bucks buying bulk hops.

Planning to start BIAB partial mash, which should shave about $5-$10 per batch. Dunno when I'll get around to all grain.

Also I should start harvesting yeasts, which would shave another $4-$8.

But heck, even an expensive $60 batch is two cases of some kick-ass, tailored-to-my-tastes brew that I ain't likely to find at less than $7.50 a sixer retail.

an expensive batch for me is 30 bucks
typically more like 20 ish.

lets see about 50 normal 12 oz beers
$.40-$.50 cents each ish and its really good custom made brew. umm yes please.

I usually can be around 30 bucks for a 5 gallon batch, less if I'm making a lighter beer, a little more if I am going above 5 gallons. I should've slapped my dad for making me do a all extract kit for a beer, since he wanted me to brew a honey weiss for him (seriously its almost 70 cents a bottle for a kit, when I could do it at like 40 cents a bottle if he had just let me do all grain).

If I am making a fruit beer or something, if I can at all possible I try and locate a wild source for whatever fruit it is. I picked a little less than a 1lb of mulberries in the summer, froze them, then mashed them up and had a mulberry wheat (which is fantastic, and the little bits of mulberry skins make it feel all rustic and organic:fro: ). The berries were free and if I had purchased them (god knows where) I bet it'd be expensive. Got 5 lbs of blueberries recently, not free, but SWMBO has extended family that owns the far the pick your own blue berry bushes were on. I can't imagine paying for those big cans of fruit puree.

Farmers markets will drastically cut costs on weird things, or give you a really delicious locally sourced product, I try and get all my honey from the farmers market and the people will cut you a deal usually is you're going to purchase a bulk amount.

For me it's the type of beer. Varies depending on how much grain and hops. Also, whether or not I bought a 50lb of 2 Row on sale, etc. This is all for All Grain.

If I buy in bulk for grains and hops, these prices would even be lower.

Centennial Blonde Ale 6 Gallon Recipe ~ $18
Black IPA 6 Gallon Recipe ~ $32
Choc Oatmeal Stout 6 Gallon Recipe ~ $42

All grain with the power of bulk purchasing through your local home brew club.

I just brewed a 15.50 gallon American Amber for $53.55. That includes $13.50 for LP gas and $9.45 for the water I must purchase.

By washing yeast and buying hops and malt through my club my beer is costing less & less to produce.