Cost of Brewing.....Kits vs Bulk ingedients

Hello
I'm new to brewing and really want to know how many experienced extract brewers use kits.looking at prices it seems that kit prices aren't that much more expensive than separate ingredients for a similar recipe.Also shipping.Do alot of you buy mail order/internet or buy from brew stores.Kit prices at a dozen or so different online outfits seem very competitive,telling me that these kits aren't a bad way to go.What do you think?
Bill

Kits are fine. As you become more experienced and read up here you'll want to make some of the recipes you find here. It's a progression.

You can bring the price per brew down by buying ingredients in bulk like hops, grains, and extract. Find some brew buddies or join a local home brew club and you can split your orders. Harvesting your yeast can also be a cost saver.

I've recently found that the Brewer's Best kits at my local Big Box Liquor Store are about the same price as buying the ingredients individually. Having the style guidelines from Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and the recipes from Szamatulskis' Beer Captured, I can build a batch with just ingredients. I find that I have a bit of each ingredient left over, so that just means that I can play a bit more with the next batch. Yeah, I'm this confident after only 4 brews. Go figure. If I can do it, anyone can...

You start saving money when you buy hops by the pound and grain by the 50 lb bag. I don't buy in bulk, except for Columbus pellets.

I buy by the batch, basically, at my LHBS. Kits have the advantage of removing guesswork, buying separately (as I do) will become more natural as you feel more like experimenting with variants. This will likely happen once you have a few batches under your belt (literally and idiomatically). You are correct that cost is not much of a factor if you buy by the batch, regardless of whether you use kits or not.

I have never brewed grain, and have been amazed by the consistent quality of extract kits...

Big savings to be had switching from liquid to dry yeast

kappclark said:

I have never brewed grain, and have been amazed by the consistent quality of extract kits...

Big savings to be had switching from liquid to dry yeast

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I have to say that IMO the liquid yeast will ALWAYS make a better beer!!! And there is a much larger variety of yeast (some styles you can ONLY brew correctly using the proper yeast strain)

So you save $3.00 on a batch of beer... but if it isn't what you were shooting for, then I have to say you wasted your money


mikey

Exo said:

Kits are fine. As you become more experienced and read up here you'll want to make some of the recipes you find here. It's a progression.

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Yup.

First batch, kit.
Second batch, kit (split equally, half receiving raspberries and maple, the other being "control")
Third batch, recipe I borrowed from Walker.
Fourth batch, recipe I developed myself (with lots of help from folks here)
Next batch - AG/mostly-AG.

I've done 3 extract kits and a simple (hefeweizen) recipe I got with the help of guys on here. I've gone with kits and liquid yeast so far. Personally, I haven't been able to get a good deal on specialty grains to make my own recipes, so I've gone with kits because they've been cheaper in most cases due to needing to buy a whole pound of grain to get the 3 oz I need for the recipes I've looked at. And I'm just starting out and I like to brew a different kind of beer each batch, so I figure the grains will go bad before I get around to brewing the same recipe again.

Austin Homebrew does offer a partial pound specialty grain setup, but they are too far away from me through climatic extremes for me to trust the yeast I order from them during the warm months.

The only thing I think I'd consider buying large quantities of would be DME.

I basically have three of my own ale recipes, which are fine-tuned to my tastes. The rest of the time I buy kits or follow recipes; extract, AG, doesn't really matter. I enjoy doing clones someone else worked out. I rarely do high gravity ales & I don't drink enough to make bulk grain worth while. Last year, I purchased a 45 lb box of short bags of extract from Williams. It was fun working my way through those.

ive never used a kit in any of the brews ive done.. i basically search for something i like then tweak it to my tastes.. sometimes i only do a few changes.. i always buy my stuff per my recipe.. now granted i could run out and buy a case of budlight cheaper than what it costs me to brew my own..but it would not be as good or have that feeling of .. I DID THIS!

In my honest opinion, if you want to create your own recipes (which is, I think, the funnest part of this whole thing), then ProMash is indispensible. For $25, you get more than you'll ever need in the way of calculations and inventory management. I've never done a kit, and I don't think I ever will. To me, it's the difference between buying the ingredients at the store and making dinner from scratch, and using Hamburger Helper. Well, not THAT bad, considering that kits make perfectly good beer. But, for most homebrewers, it's not just about the finished product. How you get there is important as well.

I guess, in the end, I'd go with a kit if I didn't trust myself, or if I was short on time and didn't have enough time to research and compile a recipe.

I've found out that kits are more cost effective than buying ingredients for single batches, but when buying for multiple batches things change. I recently figured this out for one recipe I like from Seven Bridges. They have flat $11 shipping which comes into play when ordering multiple batches at once.

Here's the numbers I came up with. My individual costs don't include irish moss.

These are the costs per batch
Kit: $31.00
One Batch: $31.99
Two Batches: $29.39
Three Batches: $29.59
Four Batches: $28.89
Five Batches: $29.45
Six Batches: $28.64

The best thing to do is to work up a spreadsheet because it's also dependent on the recipe. Because of the quantities in which Seven Bridges sells their hops and smaller quantities of malts (like for chocolate and caramel 120) it's more cost effective for me to buy for an even number of batches than odd.

BeerLuvnGrl said:

...now granted i could run out and buy a case of budlight cheaper than what it costs me to brew my own..but it would not be as good or have that feeling of .. I DID THIS!

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Agreed. We *ahem* drank ourselves silly on a mix of 6 homebrews last New Years, and it was very rewarding to say "I made this hangover!" We were genuinely proud of our sick and sorry asses.

I'm also proud to report I've not been sick on homebrew since.

kvh

I brew all grain, average ABV 5.5 and it comes in at about @.19 per 12 oz. I know I spent $400.00 or so on AG equipment and that is not included in the .19
I think my first three brews were kit and they were $.50 - .60 per bottle. There is a steep learning curve but each batch amortizes my equipment cost so that I save money in the same way my wife does when she comes home with armloads of crap and says "Look how much money I saved!"

My first brew was an extract plus specialty steeping grains kit. That wasn't that long ago. I put it in the fermenter 51.5 hours ago. I bought all the ingredients for my second brew today at my LHBS. This one will be a mini-mash. 5 pounds of grains that I'll batch sparge and 4.5 pounds of extract to add to the boil. I'll probably continue in this vein with kits and/or mini-mashes until I feel like I have the hang of it and understand the principles of AG.

I'm sufficiently challenged with my hamburger helper menu right now while I'm studying the more complex methods that I'm sure I'll be using eventually. In the meantime, I'm having a blast and I'm well on the way to beer bliss nirvana, Just looking forward to the day I can try my own bottle-conditioned home brew.

I brew extract/specialty grain beers. By planning seasonally and buying bulk and reusing yeast.......I have my cost down to @ $15-20 per 5 gallons.

When you can buy LME for $1.40/lb bulk compared to $3.62/lb in cans...you can see the reason to go bulk!

Brew kits until you find your favorites then just buy the kit ingredients in bulk.