recipe kit shipping is expensive!

Why is shipping soo expensive? I want to order a recipe kit from brewbrothers.biz and 1 kit costs $26 to ship! 2 costs $38! I know Austin homebrew supply has flat shipping but are a bit pricier. I can't order from rebel brewer or ill have to pay shipping and tax! So what's a guy to do? My local shop has a shelf with like 5 kits on it.... Nothing I'm interested in.

try norther brewer... and if their prices are too high they do give you the recipes on their site so you can try to piece them together yourself

or you could browse the recipes section of this page and use someones posted recipe

You could look up recipe kits on midwestsupplies.com and just wrire down the ingredients and quantities and pick them up individually from your lhbs. I say midwest because most of there kits have tge instructions with hop additions that are in downloadable pdf form. I did one kit now i look up kits or recipes and think what can i do different if i dobt love it

Austin Home Brew has shipping for $7 any order under $100, and $5 any order over 100. I normally buy 2 kits at a time + some other equipment I need and break the $100 mark. Also Northern Brewer has pretty good shipping prices too. Even though these kits might be slightly more expensive, the shipping price probably makes it much cheaper.

Northern brewer used to have good shipping costs, not so much now. On some things, yes, but they no longer have a flat rate so if you are an all grain brewer or get a high gravity kit it will run you more money. But like I said they do give you the recipe on their site and if you do buy it from them they have a "kit guarentee" that states that they will replace your kit for any reason if you are unhappy with it.

Like other have said.. Use the recipes on these online sites or the recipes on HBT. BYO magazine has some good recipes in it. So does the AHA website. You can always buy books. Participate in a group buy for bulk grains and then buy whatever else you need at your LHBS.

NB's recipes are also available as a Beersmith 2 add-on.

NB shipping is a little pricey for one kit sure. If you feel like stocking up tho, you should go there. They shipped 600$ worth of stuff to my door in three days. shipping was a about 25 bucks for that. I will defiantly order from there again.

244 Caps from NB:


Subtotal $14.00
Shipping & Handling (Ship Method - Shipping Information - UPS Ground ( 5 business days )) $13.45

My local shop has a shelf with like 5 kits on it.... Nothing I'm interested in.

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Have you asked it the local shop would special order the kits you want? Sometimes they will do that with little extra shipping if you are willing to wait until they get a regular delivery.

ackbrew said:

244 Caps from NB:


Subtotal $14.00
Shipping & Handling (Ship Method - Shipping Information - UPS Ground ( 5 business days )) $13.45

Click to expand...

I frequently purchases spices from an online merchant and they have this plastered all over their site to avoid issues like this:

Shipping one item

Shipping via UPS is very expensive (per product) when you only order one item. That is because you are paying the package fee for UPS no matter what you order, plus the handling fee. Here is an example. A one pound package going only one mile away costs $8.18 for shipping on our website, this is $6.18 to UPS plus our $2 packaging and handling fee. A two pound package costs $8.26 total, a three pound package costs $8.32, a four pound package costs $8.40, etc. So if you order one four ounce bag of something, you are paying $8.18 per product for shipping. If you order 24 four ounce packages, you are paying 34 cents shipping per product.

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I've never understood why anyone feels entitled to free (or cheap) shipping. Online shopping is nothing more than a shell game... bottom line is so what if you end up 'paying' 30 bucks in shipping when the total cost isn't different?

That being said, with anything I've ever needed to order I have never found more than a few dollar spread between the big online home brew stores, so I end up placing my order with whichever company has the obscure ingredient I need with that order.

Brewmaster's Warehouse has $6.99 shipping. Most of the most popular recipes in the HBT Recipe forum are in their recipe database. Find something you like from the forum and look for it there. If it is not there, you can plug it, or any other recipe that you want into their brew builder and order it. You don't have to buy a lb of grain if your recipe calls for 6 oz, the will send the amount you order. You do have to get whole ounces of hops, but you can leave ingredients off of the recipes if you have them in stock at home. If you use the BBBYO code you get 10% off on recipes. Pretty much cuts the shipping in half on a single recipe.

I have been very happy with anything that I have ordered from them.

TheCollector said:

My local shop has a shelf with like 5 kits on it.... Nothing I'm interested in.

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There's nothing magical about a kit. It's just a recipe with the ingredients already assembled. If you browse the recipe section of this site there are thousands of proven recipes, many of which have been brewed by hundreds of people and have won awards at competitions. Take one of those recipes to your local shop and assemble the ingredients yourself (I'm sure the shop will be happy to help you). Then you don't have to pay shipping costs.

ktblunden said:

Take one of those recipes to your local shop and assemble the ingredients yourself (I'm sure the shop will be happy to help you). Then you don't have to pay shipping costs.

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I did that once, and the individual ingredients in the store were much more expensive than the price online (i.e. $19 for 3 lb DME in the store vs $12 online). I ended up paying more for the ingredients than I would have if I'd ordered the kit online and paid shipping (even worse if you are going to buy multiple kits online to save on shipping).