Grab a beer, they don't cost nothing!

Just a quick I am going to gloat moment 10 gallons of beer for a grand total cost of $10.00.

I made 10 gallons of lager the other day and it cost me next to nothing to make it. Let me gloat and run down the price breakdowns for ya.

I ordered 14 lbs of crushed grain from an online homebrew shop, but they sent me whole grain, instead of crushed. To make up for it they sent me the crushed and told me to keep the whole grain, nice, free grain. I brought the whole grain to a friends house and used his mill to grind it up. I then went to my kitchen cupboard and got about 5 pounds of rice out of my 20lb bag and boiled it up to use as an adjunct along with the 14 lbs of grain. This is essentially zero cost unless you count the rice which probably cost me all of $3.

I used the hops that I grew this past season to bitter and to add aroma to this lager. So the hops cost me Nothing at all.

I then made a starter from some washed lager yeast I was keeping in my fridge. I got a lb of dme off the shelf, it probably cost me $4.00, but I don't know as it was just sitting on my shelf waiting to be used.

If you count in the cost of gas and cleaning supplies etc I probably spent about $10 on this 10 gallons of beer. So I can truly say go ahead, grab a beer, they don't cost nothing, well they actually wind up costing me about 10 cents each....

In my mind though the beer didn't cost me a single cent as it was made from left overs and things I had around the house anyway.

Don't mind if I do...I'm in Watertown, so I'll be right over..

Here's a dollar..I'll be here for awhile.

Great story, I have been trying to think like a cheap charley for years now. Break downs like this helps.

why did you put rice in your grains?

Must be something about us Yankees....I'm planning to brew a $0 batch this weekend. Using grains given to me,leftover packages of hops and pitching on a yeast cake.Oh,wait...going to buy water. Damn... this 5 gallons is going to cost me almost $2. That's almost $.04 a bottle....hmmmmm...I'll have to do better next time.

do you include the gas/elec it takes to do the boil?

or the water to boil and chill? (if you're on a water meter)

B

bad coffee said:

do you include the gas/elec it takes to do the boil?

or the water to boil and chill? (if you're on a water meter)

B

Click to expand...

I have been thinking about this lately. Since I've gone AG the relative cost of all the water I use to brew a batch has gone up. All of that water to cool the wort, and the enormous quantity to first clean then sanitize everything including the kegs and bottles.

In the UK hops cost £5.75 for 100 gm from fome brew suppliers that about 8 dollars I think. Crushed pale malt costs 61p a pound, so a 6 gallon brew would cost £10.50 plus yeast plus finings plus water cost plus electricity cost...