All grain is crazy cheap!

So I figured that all in all my costs for the pale ale I brewed last night was $13.54 or a quarter a bottle! wow! Not including the cost of the equipment, lol! Sam Adams is $1.42 a bottle at the store, lol!

It is really cheap if you buy in Bulk.

I bought 55# bags of Pilsen and Munich Malts. With shipping it comes out to $0.91/lb and $0.92/lb respectively.

1lb of Magnum hops delivered $1.02/ounce

If you can learn to harvest and re-pitch yeast even better.

Harvesting yeast is great.

I buy my hops in bulk, but I find that it constricts me a bit lately. I only have Centennial and Cascade, so I brew everything with those now. Maybe I should buy more variety. I wish I could buy half lbs of 4 dif hops instead of lbs of 2!

mimo777 said:

So I figured that all in all my costs for the pale ale I brewed last night was $13.54 or a quarter a bottle! wow! Not including the cost of the equipment, lol! Sam Adams is $1.42 a bottle at the store, lol!

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OHHHHH.. a quarter a bottle. Thought you said 13 dollars for a quarter of a bottle.

Thats pretty cheap. whered you get all the ingredients for 13 bucks?

how much grain , hops, yeast?

A bit more expensive when you add in propane costs, but yes, MUCH cheaper than buying commercial, adequately cheaper than doing extract...

I am looking on brewing a Duvel clone. Around here, it's like $4.50 a bottle. I should be able to get the ingredients for about $25, which should make about $270 worth of Duvel.

How's THAT for cheap?

chask31 said:

Harvesting yeast is great.

I buy my hops in bulk, but I find that it constricts me a bit lately. I only have Centennial and Cascade, so I brew everything with those now. Maybe I should buy more variety. I wish I could buy half lbs of 4 dif hops instead of lbs of 2!

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An HBT vendor http://farmhousebrewingsupply.com/Scripts/default.asp
has some great pricing on pellet hops. I rarely use them but did order recently and got fast delivery of some hard to find hops in Leaf at the moment.

I like to see a break down of those costs I think you must be omitting some expenses.

Such as LP or eletricity, water involved in brewing and chilling, cleaning and sanitizing solution and the water involved in that too, sugar & or CO2, Bottle caps if you bottle unless you reuse bottle caps. Plus any heating or cooling expense to keep your wort at fermentation temp. If you use LP in portable tanks there's also the expense of driving to a refill site unless you combine that with a trip you'll make for other purposes or have a site you can stop by on your regular commute

I'm assuming you aerate rather than oxygenate so you don't have any expense for oxygenation, and that you wash your yeast and reuse that as well and get the orginal yeast for free from some other brewer.

I think you can about double your estimate

Home brewing really only make economic sense if you do like jetsmooth and brew something really expensive like DuVel or figure your free time as of no value whatsoever.

Abracadabra you're definitely right, lol! I'm just suspending my knowledge of business and process and viewing things like equipment, energy, sanitation, and bottling as free. Its just amazing that even when you factor those in things are much cheaper. I guess if I reused corny kegs that were given to me and I inherited all the equipment, used natural carbonation and pushed the entire keg with a hand pump in one shot instead of over time, then it would be $0.25 cents. I am just getting over excited at the fact that I started with grain and hot water and got a decent amount of wort to make a 5 gallon batch of beer with without using expensive DME or LME.

It's a great hobby alright and the money argument is good to use on the wife!

I averaged it out a while ago for myself. And a normal batch runs about 22 bucks and change. This includes the majority of what abracadabra pointed out.

abracadabra said:

I like to see a break down of those costs I think you must be omitting some expenses.

Such as LP or eletricity, water involved in brewing and chilling, cleaning and sanitizing solution and the water involved in that too, sugar & or CO2, Bottle caps if you bottle unless you reuse bottle caps. Plus any heating or cooling expense to keep your wort at fermentation temp. If you use LP in portable tanks there's also the expense of driving to a refill site unless you combine that with a trip you'll make for other purposes or have a site you can stop by on your regular commute

I'm assuming you aerate rather than oxygenate so you don't have any expense for oxygenation, and that you wash your yeast and reuse that as well and get the orginal yeast for free from some other brewer.

I think you can about double your estimate

Home brewing really only make economic sense if you do like jetsmooth and brew something really expensive like DuVel or figure your free time as of no value whatsoever.

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I value my free time. But I do not figure my time as cost into the brew. if you did you would never come out ahead. I don't figure my time when I do my other hobbies or, so why should I figure in the cost of time when I get enjoyment out of doing it?

Special Hops said:

I value my free time. But I do not figure my time as cost into the brew. if you did you would never come out ahead. I don't figure my time when I do my other hobbies or, so why should I figure in the cost of time when I get enjoyment out of doing it?

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I agree with you. I don't see how you can figure time as a cost in a hobby, people bring this up frequently on hbt. If I'm not brewing I'd be doing some other hobby.

Munich Helles:

Price/Pound
Munich$0.92 0.75 $0.69
$0.91 10 $9.09
$1.78 0.25 $0.45

edit: reply got lost, and I don't feel like typing it all out again....

$0.37 per 12 ounce bottle + starsan/pbw, + electricity, + co2

abracadabra said:

It's a great hobby alright and the money argument is good to use on the wife!

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My money argument went out the window with the wife about $1000 ago.

itsbeeryo said:

My money argument went out the window with the wife about $1000 ago.

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+1 lol

The need for sanitizer, bottle caps, electricity etc are generally the same w/ extract & all-grain. He just spent a little bit oF money on grain and made beer, rather than buying the pre-fab stuff (extract).
that is what the OP was saying-- all the other arguments are off-target IMO.

itsbeeryo said:

My money argument went out the window with the wife about $1000 ago.

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Well you're not supposed to keep a tally...any evidence of the expenses of this hobby should be kept hidden

abracadabra said:

I like to see a break down of those costs I think you must be omitting some expenses.

Such as LP or eletricity, water involved in brewing and chilling, cleaning and sanitizing solution and the water involved in that too, sugar & or CO2, Bottle caps if you bottle unless you reuse bottle caps. Plus any heating or cooling expense to keep your wort at fermentation temp. If you use LP in portable tanks there's also the expense of driving to a refill site unless you combine that with a trip you'll make for other purposes or have a site you can stop by on your regular commute

I'm assuming you aerate rather than oxygenate so you don't have any expense for oxygenation, and that you wash your yeast and reuse that as well and get the orginal yeast for free from some other brewer.

I think you can about double your estimate

Home brewing really only make economic sense if you do like jetsmooth and brew something really expensive like DuVel or figure your free time as of no value whatsoever.

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You're probably right. I'm all electric, though, and I didn't see an increase in my electric bill at all. Of course, the set up cost a fair bit!

I use 1/2 RO water from the store, at $.78 for two gallons. I use two at each brewday, for most beers except stouts. So, that's almost $1.60 for water plus my tap water. For the chiller and cleaning, I probably use quite a bit of tap water. My water bill hasn't increased, though- since we have a 4000 gallon "minimum" charge each month and I haven't exceeded that.

Base grain is about $45 for 50 pounds. That's about 5 five gallon batches. Specialty grains are about $3 or so per batch. Yeast washing/saving saves a ton of money, especially for liquid yeast strains. Hops are bought by the pound, so figure $1.50 an ounce average (some are cheaper, some are not). Wednesday's batch (an AAA) cost me about $13 in ingredients.

Of course, I have an electric HERMS, a barley crusher, tons of fermenters, etc. Those all involved some $$$$$, that's for sure!

Tap water is essentially free (I think I once worked it out to about 5c per batch, inclusive of chilling, cleaning, etc.).

C02 is much the same; it only takes a few oz per batch, at a rate of about 50c/lb in bulk - again, essentially free.

Sanitizer - star-san comes out to about 20c per gallon mixed, for me, but a gallon lasts for a couple months at least, and several batches.

I count equipment as free. You only have to justify the costs once, up-front. Otherwise, figure about $1k, divided by 50 batches per year - after 4 years of brewing, equipment costs are down to $5/batch.

Energy costs depend on what sort of energy you're using. Propane is probably the most expensive per batch, and comes in around $3 or 4 per batch for me.

So: fixed costs per batch are approximately 8 bucks per batch - but that holds true for extract or all-grain equally.

Ingredient costs per batch vary widely, as a rough estimate, I figure i pay $1/lb of grain, and $2/oz of hops - that's something like $15 for an 'average' batch. Add in yeast - figure I get several batches out of a pack of yeast, for a per-batch cost of maybe $3.

Total it all up for an 'average' batch (for me) cost of ~$18, plus the 'sunk' equipment costs that I'd already paid for, worth about $8

LOL! I had the same epiphony once I bought bulk grains, a grinder, and bulk hops. I don't think I've quite brewed enough yet to save against good commercial beers, though, if you figure the equipment cost into it, but I'm getting closer to that point. Once cost savings have covered it, other than hobby time, it IS way cheaper....

I usually buy just bulk pale malt, a pound of a hop I know I'll use(like Cascade), and buy smaller quantities of other grains and hops and yeast. Seems to be the best economy for my situation.

I saw a quote on here recently "You don't buy a boat to save money on fish." That's basically true. However, if you love fishing and fish often enough it might be worth it.

Brewing is the same. The more you brew, the faster you can amortize your equipment costs. I don't brew to save money. I brew because I enjoy it. However if I can cut down on my monthly beer bill by brewing my own... even better

The more you drink, the more you save. Perfect hobby!!

well I just spent $70 bones on ingredients. But its for 12 gal of a big IPA. Half of the cost was for hops,I need to buy hops in bulk. that would help me out more than anything. but 20lbs of grain is pretty cheap.

I figure if I use harvested yeast .... which I just about always do. I have a batch down to about $10 .... I'm glad I switched to all grain.

The equipment cost is always the biggest barrier to going all-grain (and time). If you factor in capital equipment, it will raise the price but should pay for itself relatively quickly unless you go hog wild on the purchases. Then it just takes a little longer to work itself out!

I always justify it by saying that I save $75 per batch. My math for that goes as follows: in my area any decent craft brew keg (15.5 gal) is $165 out the door. That is $10.65 per gallon or equating to $106.50 per 10 gallons. My average cost for a 10 gal batch is about $30. So $106.50 - $30 is a savings of $76.50 over buying it retail.

Make 10 batches and you've saved $750. Make 20 batches and you've saved $1500!

Looking at it this way starts to justify the brew rig pretty quickly.

the problem with that math, for me at least, is that I wouldn't drink nearly as much beer if I had to buy it.

prosper said:

the problem with that math, for me at least, is that I wouldn't drink nearly as much beer if I had to buy it.

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...but that's not really a problem.

All grain will make you rich.

You can brew more for less. You will have more beer. The more beer you have, the more friends will come over to drink it. The more friends you have the richer your life will be.

So you see, everyone should go all grain!

Edit (I agree: you should never write down what you spend on making beer)

buzzkill said:

well I just spent $70 bones on ingredients. But its for 12 gal of a big IPA. Half of the cost was for hops,I need to buy hops in bulk. that would help me out more than anything. but 20lbs of grain is pretty cheap.

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My last beer was a Stone Ruination Clone (IIPA). It was half the size of yours, but not $35, maybe $20 max, as I got a huge amount of Centennial, really, really cheap! It used almost exclusively Centennial, at 100+ IBU.

What I've not done is figure out how to make a varied malt and/or high quantity hop bill like a Pliny clone to be that cheap. Then again, I bought a bomber of an exotic IIPA recently for $10! If you are a hophead or like exotic flavors, you are going to spend more, but may also "save" more!

High efficiency, small grain bill, recycled yeast, bulk malt, hops and caps. Ultra cheap Canadian electricity.

I've got down to 10$ 6 gallon batches of stout and pale ales. I'm a student, I'm a cheapass, I love getting buddies a little drunk for loose change. Beer here tends to be pretty expensive.

I come in at easily under $30 per 5.5 gallon batch, including the cost of water, gas, all equipment averaged out, ingredients, EVERYTHING. If the average commercial 6er cost $8, that's a cost differential of approx. $3 per sixer to $8 per sixer. Yes brewing for me is cheaper than drinking commercial brews. Add in the cost savings by brewing your own RIS, Barleywine, and clones of high end $4+ per bottle brews and the savings become even more drastic. However as many have said this hobby can be as expensive or inexpensive as you make it. I tend to be on the less expensive end of that spectrum.

Schlante,
Phillip

hopsdirect.com has great prices by the pound. i brewed an ipa a couple weeks ago (and will be kegging it) tomorrow for about $40 for 11 gallons. 6.8%, 65 ibu...

every time i do the math and i get about $0.25/12 oz pour i then factor in the 2 oe 3 thousand i have spent on the brewery and it make smy head hurt.

remember the price of a sixtel of craft beer is quite expensive.....I pay around $60 plus tax for SNPA.......from what I have read here things can get really reasonable with bulk grain / hop buys, combine this with yeast washing and you really can save some cash

Dauntless said:

High efficiency, small grain bill, recycled yeast, bulk malt, hops and caps. Ultra cheap Canadian electricity.

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Yeah, and they just started the last phase of the James Bay Project (Rupert River Diversion) that should make it even cheaper.

mashman said:

remember the price of a sixtel of craft beer is quite expensive.....I pay around $60 plus tax for SNPA.......

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What's a "sixtel"? Is that a sixth barrel, or roughly the size of a corny?

With my club discount at the LHBS and harvesting my own yeast, I'm doing a blonde today for about $14 for the 5G batch. Not bad at all.

joety said:

What's a "sixtel"? Is that a sixth barrel, or roughly the size of a corny?

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yep sixth barrel....or third of a half keg, so its slightly more than 5 gallons

that's really the only reason I went AG. and I want my head buried in the sand on the power/propane/parts costs, so keep quiet!