jatlrdierk

Recipes 

My wife is pregnant with our first and money is going to be tight for the rest of my life. A friend of mine has been in the same situation for 8 years. We are looking for the cheapest method for brewing beer. This includes buying our own barley/corn/rice/wheat/sugar source. We are not extemely concerned with taste, we just want to make beer cheap. Don't bash us for acting like teenagers, we all drink beer for the same reason.

For instance, we are considering finding a farmer, buying a bucket of wheat or corn, malting it, going the full 9. What is a good method for germination? We are considering growing our own hops...what is a good universal variety?

I have got all the equipment for making all grain and can do a lager if possible, so I think I'm set up. Any suggestions?

Sea

Recipes 

Wow, well prepare for the onslaught.

First off, Barley is what you want to malt, not corn or wheat. I would recomend planting several varities of hops, as they grow like weeds and the Rhizomes only cost about $5.

Also, do some searching on this site. Many brewers who buy in bulk and propagate their yeast claim $8-9 per 5 gal batch, and that's good beer.

Good luck, malting my own barley is far more work than I'd want to take on, at least on a regular basis.

__________________
I plan on living forever. So far, so good! - unknown.


Corrupt Brewers

HarvInSTL

Recipes 

Then just buy cheap beer. 30packs of Keystone Light Ice go for $11-12 around here.

__________________
Primary: Cherry Vanilla Melomel, Blueberry melomel, Orange Cranberry Melomel, Port, Orange Blossom Muscat, Dubbel, Golden Strong

Secondary: 9/9/9/-My version, Carbernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Raspberry Melomel

On deck: Tripel, 5 day IPA Squared, White Russian Imperial Stout

Live in Saint Louis, MO? Then check out www.stlbrews.org and www.garagebrewers.com

the_bird

Recipes 

Frankly, bull****! Complete, and absolute, bull****!

The best answer is to buy domestic 2-row in bulk, you're looking at $35, maybe, for 50# of domestic 2-row. That's pretty negligible on a per-beer basis.

__________________
Come join Yankee Ingenuity!

"I'm kind of toasted. But I looked at my watch and it's only 6:30 so I can't stop drinking yet." - Yooper's Bob

fishops

Recipes 

Malting your own probably isn't worth the time and effort if all you're trying to do is save cash. Doing it in bulk requires a kiln, which is a big up front expense. Doing it in your oven will take so much time that you would be better off picking up a minimum wage job to cover the extra grain cost.

Not counting specialty grains, yeast or hops, you can get a 55lb sack of malted 2-row shipped for around 45 bucks. At around 10lb per 5 gallon batch, that works out to about 8.50 a batch or 17 cents a beer. You can probably source malt cheaper than that locally.

__________________
Primary 1 - Apfelwein
Primary 2 - ???
On Tap: Centennial Blonde
Kegged / Bottled: Oatmeal Stout, Dunkelweizen

McKBrew

Recipes 

What reason do we all drink beer for?

Seriously, if you want cheap beer buy it. In the long run you could make your own beer cheaper, but factoring in equipment costs you'll have to make quite a few batches to break even.

sirsloop

Recipes 

Apparently not... If you are just looking to get drunk, go get yourself a handle of cheap vodka and get the job done.

__________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~___//_ ____________________________~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~_/ [][]| | /```\/```\/```\/```\/```\ |~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~_/_______| |____NOW TRIPLE HOPPED______|~~~~~~~~~~
~~~___/[_]| 00 /| | \,,,/\,,,/\,,,/\,,,/\,,,/ |~~~~~~~~~~
~~|___|___|___/_| |___________________________|~~~~~~~~~~
~~|=(*)[________]==(*)(*)=| \________/=(*)(*)=|~~~~~~~~~~

Arneba28

Recipes 

Carnal Sin....(shakes head)....over working an already complicated enough process and in the meantime it will actually cost more to grow enough hops, malt and kiln enough barley, not to mention steeping/specialty grains, oh and the extra time it takes to ferment a batch naturally.

__________________
My Kegerator Project

BigEd

Recipes 

What Harv said. Frankly if you are just looking to get loaded buy sugar in bulk from a restaurant supply house, build a still and make skull-pop. The most cost efficient way to make beer is to brew all grain. You will need to build, buy or other by some way acquire the equipment for mashing as well as for fermenting and bottling/kegging. The process is not difficult but it does require knowledge, time, effort and some attention to detail. If you cheat on those requirements you are going to wind up with a seriously deficient product. Brewing is easier than malting and kilning grain so I totally agree with fishops on that topic. Also, as Sea said, you want barley to brew beer not corn and wheat. Wheat beer and beer with corn as an ingredient still uses barley as the base. I'm also going to agree with the_bird here and tell you we don't all drink beer for the same reason. At least the reason that you imply. So if you want to invest some time and effort in brewing beer then by all means go for it. Homebrewing is both fun and rewarding. If not I will go back and paraphrase Harv and suggest you check the weekly ads for those 30 pack specials.

jatlrdierk

Recipes 

So what is the other reason for drinking beer? Don't tell me any of you would drink N/A beer because you love the taste.

Don't take me the wrong way, I love good beer, and I'm not a $10/case kind of guy. We just want make beer in the cheapest way possible. I think the idea of buying barley malt in serious bulk is probably more worth my while than re-inventing the wheel. Hop growing and yeast cultivating seem like good possibilities. Is there a good universal hop variety that is easiest to grow in the mid-atlantic?