How many of you have brewed steadily for years on a budget brewery?

Though I have brewed off and on since the early 90's, it wasn't until a few years ago that I got into brewing hard and heavy. Within a few months I was brewing all-grain, had a kegerator, and the whole nine yards. The problem was that once I felt that I had mastered brewing (was able to make beer that I thought tasted as good as store bought) I started to lose interest.

In addition to losing interest, I also packed on the pounds from consuming my product. This ultimately lead to me selling my entire brewery and moving on to another hobby. So here I am 3 years later with the urge to brew again. I've started to amass my brewery, but this time around I'm planning to keep it simple; no expensive equipment, no kegerator, just good beer on a budget.

Since I've been back lurking around this forum the last month I've noticed others selling their brewery set ups in the classified section and can't help but wonder if they are getting out of brewing for similar reasons as mine a few years ago. Did they get into the hobby hot and heavy only to burn out fast?

So I ask you, is it possible to think that I can start brewing again on a steady basis (1-2 batches on hand at any given time) and not get consumed with building the bigger better brewery or am I just fooling myself?

That depends entirely on you.

Depends on what you mean by bigger better...I have a 10 gallon round cooler, turkey burner and a keggle. I also have a two tap kegerator and two chest freezers. one for lagering and the other for conditioning my kegs. I think I make very good beer. If your not lagering, I guess you could live with one freezer, but that's it...What am I saying, you don't need any freezers.

OP,
You know how you are and how you obsess, so no one can say how it might be for you. But, it is absolutely possible to make good beer without all the bells and whistles. I started out in 1979 with a Zappap and a couple pots and am still at it. It's only the last several years I have got 2 conicals and 2 walk-ins and a single tier HERMS, 2 freezers and a fridge and a dedicated room to brew in All this has not made me burned out, but rather has made me thankful. Call me blessed and obsessed if you will, but it's not the goodies that makes the beer, it's the nut behind the paddle...

I have a cooler, 8 gal pot, burner and 4 carboys. I do ag at least once a month. so id say yes and i've been brewing since 93 and im still using the same gear i had back then

I've only been at this for four years and aside from building a kegerator I'm using the same equipment I had three years ago. A 10gallon Igloo cooler, a 15 gallon aluminum pot, two buckets, two carboys and a cheap immersion chiller.

I did have to buy a new bucket last year when the bottom of one of the old ones cracked. I am looking at buying a grain mill though - still looking as it would be the most expensive piece of gear for my set up. Hoping to find one on craigslist one of these days.

The kegerator was by far the most expensive thing I put together and that was with a free refrigerator and lots of craigslist finds.

Doing this hobby inexpensively is possible, you just need to take your time when assembling your setup. Obviously going the cheapest way is not always the best...you need to get maximum value on your budget.

Stovepot BIAB, simple, fast and cheap AG setup. No real need to upgrade anything, just amass free bottles here and there.

4 yrs - still brewing with just a mash tun, turkey burner, & 2 kettles. (a couple heatsticks in the winter) No plans to spend anymore money. although an all electric brewery would be sweet.

4 years in. BIAB. 1 9 gallon pot, bag, turkey burner, 2 fermenting buckets, used wine cooler for ferm chamber, 2 kegs with picnic taps, immersion chiller and used fridge from Habitat for Humanity to keep kegs cold.

The 9 gallon SS pot was the most expensive thing I bought at $70 shipped from Bayou classic.

This year I have only bought AG kits that are on sale. Usually from AHS or BMW when he would run the recipe of the month. This saved a lot of money and took the stress off of what to brew next. They were picking it for me. Kinda fun to try beers I normally wouldn't because of what was on sale at the time. May do it again this year but beer recipes I don't like I will try one out of Brewing Classic Styles.

I get by with and am happy with the following basic stuff. I have a good pipeline built up don't see the need for anything more
50 qt. mash tun.
10 gallon aluminum pot.
2 5 gallon SS pots
A fermenter
A bottling bucket
A propane burner
Bottles.
Caps and a capper.
Some odds and ends.

bosco

I think the bare minimums beyond the basics (kettle, carboy, thermometer, hydrometer) are:

Outdoor propane burner (got to get off the stove for 5 gal boils...)
An oxygenation wand
A stir plate
Immersion chiller

I would add fermentation temperature control fridge to the list, but I think it's more of a "luxury" in a sense; you can make good beer without it, and there are other ways (ie, swamp cooler, etc) to do it. I think the others have a much higher process improvement to price spent ratio

Don't know how far you take things. Many that are selling I consider fad brewers they get in have to get all the fancy equipment then lose interest (IMO beer isn't any better so they stop brewing and it all sits collecting dust) or don't have the time now but may come back like youself. I gone to BIAB 5 gallon batches as well as 3 gallon batches (on my first 5 gallon pot) BUT I did build a 12 tap kezzer, then again I been brewing for about 20 years and have no plans to stop as I enjoy all aspects of brewing- making, drinking, talking.

When I get obsessive and get more and more stuff it's because I'm having a good time with whatever I'm doing. So I don't understand your problem. If you're buying a lot of stuff and having a good time, what's wrong?

I could see being concerned if you're feeding your kids with the leftovers from brewing but........

The OP was talking about brewing on a "BUDGET" I brew on a budget. I have a set budget per year for beer/brewing I don't need "BLING" to make beer I weigh my decisions in if I get this how much will that cost vs. how many gallons beer. If you have the income to spend then spend it. I don't I still make beer maybe a little more then is allowed The topic was brewing on a budget. just my last .02 of my beer money

I've been brewing for about three and a half years and I have a fairly modest set up. I do AG exclusively but I do a lot of smaller stovetop batches and only 1-2 batches over three gallons that do use a turkey fryer. I only bottle except for the occasional party pig filling. I just recently bought a used, small fridge to control fermentation temperatures because I felt like that was a big issue why my beers were not coming out as I wanted. I have a cooler set up for my mashes and no fancy stand. I just pick stuff up off the ground and put other stuff on the ground. I also was able to obtain my turkey fryer, propane tank, small cooler for 1 gallon batch mashes, the digital controller for the fermentation chamber and some odds and ends for free through a reward program I could convert into amazon gift cards so that helped keep costs down.

At some point I would like to keg some of my beers and in an ideal world I'd have a fancy mash set up but that's not within my budget nor do I have the home space for it. I also don't drink as much as I would like because I put on weight really fast and I'd rather not be fat, so I get by brewing small batches to satisfy my wife and myself. Now that I'm approaching the end of law school I'll hopefully have more time to hang out with friends and share my brews so that might result in more brewing or brewing larger batches. A lot of what keeps my interest is my partial obsessive nature and partially that there is an enormous amount of information out there to learn and I enjoy the history, some of the science and sampling commercial beer to keep me interested in the hobby more than just having cheap beer at home.

In my opinion, everything smaller than a 30-barrel brewery is a "budget brewery" so yeah, I've still got a budget brewery.

I'd be really sad going from the brew setup I have right now to a a super econo-class rig. Sure, I could still make good beer and all, but my rig is so EASY to brew with compared to the rig I started with. If I had to start all over again, It wouldn't take me long to get my equipment right back up to where it was before. But hey, everyone's different.

I don't know what your budget is but mine allows me to play, upgrade, tweak and do pretty much what ever I want. I run twin 2 vessel systems and have made 57gal in 10 hours. Just ordered 200,000 btu burners and can't wait to set them up.

1 Keggle (retired keg of course) $30
1 Home made 25' 3/8 copper Chiller $20
1 Turkey fryer burner $20
That and the hydro's, auto siphon(worth every penny), and various bits and pieces. Maybe another $100

I do BIAB so that's really all I need, but like most on here, I have a bunch of other stuff. Stir plate, a few buckets and better bottle/carboys, 2 keg converted fridge setup, Ferm chamber with temp controller...ect.

All and all, I think $200 can get you all you "really" need. Brew in the winter so temp control isn't a factor and your set.

You can see from my sig how far (or not) I've gotten into home brew. I do my boils on the propane burner attached to my propane grill. When it's warm, I do it outside. When it's cold, I pull the grill in the garage and do it there.

I have $60 in the Brewer's Best 2-bucket system. It was half the price at the whole foods co-op I bought it from than it is online or from other LHBSs. Dunno why it was so cheap, but I'm durn happy about that.

So far, two total hopped LME kits. Next up is a kit with LME but also separate hops. And I have a free full-sized fridge in the garage I use for cold crashing and will use for lagering if I'm going to get into pilsners and lagers.

Butcha know what? I've been drinking the stuff for almost 40 years, and I now have everything I need to make my own stuff. Sure, if I win the Powerball I might build a brew shed. But I can see myself living out the rest of my days brewing really good beer and ale from the 2-bucket system I have.

Oh hell, who am I kidding?

You can easily brew BIAB on a stovetop with a 6+ gallon pot, a funnel, a carboy, a bottling bucket, and capper/bottles for very cheap and make good beer. No need to go super expensive, though some additional things make brewing easier and perhaps better beer. Depends upon how obsessed you get with this hobby. Less than $100, plus ingredients for each batch, can make good beer, though.

I've brewed steadily for about 4 years on a budget with only the most basic supplies. I was sort of floored to find out that people brewing much less time than me have progressed so much quicker. The people here would laugh at my supplies if I listed them, probably. A few pots and some 6.5 gallon glass carboys that I found in my grandfather's shed after he passed. Cook it up, ferment it, bottle it. That's all, folks.

Richard-SSV said:

In addition to losing interest, I also packed on the pounds from consuming my product.

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The best way to avoid that is to limit your intake of food, more beer, less food= good body, mind & spirit

On another note, been brewing (mostly mead) with nothing but a big pot, several fermenters, and hand-scraped and salvages bottles from both my own extensive wine consumption (good stuff, no critter wine here) and the help of friends who like drinking craft beer at parties. I have kegs, but no kegerator, ergo they hold still mead aging (and occasionally tasted) and I mostly bottle everything carbonated out of convenience. Keep it simple, small, and quality! You savor small hand made bottle-conditioned batches so much more.

I've always considered my brewery fairly basic. It's a far cry from starter kit but I've brewed a lot with it by now. Most everything I've bought is to make better beer, not to make beer making more easy.

I have the kind of metabolism that can keep my weight very constant regardless of my diet or activity. I've always been within 10 lbs of what I was at 16. I wish my wife was the same way. I guess that could change soon--here I am at 42.

Before I started my current job I brewed as much as three times a week. Now I'm lucky to brew once in three months. I hate this job. I've even thought of doing extract or even hopped extract kits because I'm to beat to do anything on my few days off. Maybe I am growing a little tired of brewing but not near as much as working. Then maybe its just time to get some of the bells and whistles that can make for an easier brew day.

I brewed for a long time on this:



It made perfectly good beer, but the heavy lifting and pouring of hot water got to me. So now I brew on this:


The thing is, the pumps help me so much that I'm absolutely thrilled with it. But if I was younger, and didn't mind the heavy lifting (or brewing outside in the frozen tundra!), I wouldn't have bothered changing up the system.

The beer isn't any better based on the equipment. But it sure is more convenient for me to brew!

I've been brewing for nearly 9 years and have been doing AG batches for 4 yrs. I operate on a self-imposed budget. I buy a few small upgrades each year, all on sale. My cost per batch is around $22 or so. I could reduce that buy buying grains (I get mine milled for free at my LHBS) and hops in bulk but I prefer not to. I still use gravity, an old 48 qt cooler and my original toilet braid. Good beer need to not be expensive or cheap.

I'm more obsessed with tweaking my recipes and making them work in five gallon partial mash and BIAB batches. My equipment (and basically the same setup i've been using since 1991):

Kitchen stove
A stainless steel brew pot (five gallon)
Two plastic fermentation pails with air locks & gaskets
A bottling bucket
One scratch n dent deep freezer with an external mercury temp controller (aka Lagerland)
An all metal meat thermometer with a 24" probe
One big assed metal spoon
A cheap floating hydrometer
Some BIAB paint strainer bags from Lowes
The odd muslin bag for adjunct grains and such
An ass load of bottles for sharing, competitions and such
A tap-a-draft for my fridge (home drankin')

I do use Irish Moss and Fermcap on just about every batch. Fermcap is very good at preventing krausen blow offs during fermentation and eliminates my needs for a blow off tube.

BBL_Brewer said:

That depends entirely on you.

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Yup. All depends on what you want to do! I brew hard and heavy through the fall and winter, and not at all through the spring and summer. I even consider selling all my equipment, every season. hehehe.

I never do though. I have been brewing 'off and on' for 12 years. Pretty much the same equipment. I don't have a kegerator. Although, I do have an extra fridge! Why? For something... eventually...

You have to find a balance in it! I wouldn't stress about it too much. Just keep some basic brew equipment on hand for when you get the urge.

Been brewing 13yrs, ten of which consists of a 48qt square cooler w/copper manifold. I have one keggle, a 10 gallon and a 7.5 gallon pot. I have a sabco fermentor I traded for and have never used, a brutus ten stand that just sits in my shop. I also still use my son of fermentation chamber that cost me $35 to build

I make very good beer on my old 10 year old system and just can't make the leap to anything else. I'm just really comfortable with and know my old system so well I don't want to change.

Basic brewing equipment works just fine if you know what your doing with it.

Cheers!