Light Ales & Ingredient costs

[Morrey]

I have bought only extract kits before and find there are items included like bottle caps and priming sugar I don't use since I keg. It may not be many $$, but why buy if never used?? I even bought steeping bags in bulk so I don't need those supplied in a kit either. So, I am thinking only to buy my DME or LME, specialty steeping grains, yeast and hops.

I figure that I can brew a less expensive version of a kit if I buy a bulk of these items and get free shipping, but I'll do some price comps to make sure.

Does anyone have a summer favorite, light straw colored ale extract recipe with low IBU's that makes an easy drinking summer refresher? If you have done some comparison shopping for ingredients like I mentioned, how did you come out compared to assembled kits? I know that bulk can help, but I am many miles away from the closest LHBS or brewing club to buy lots of items and share.

Thanks!!

 

[CA_Mouse]

Easiest 2 I can think of are:

American Blonde Ale
7# Light LME
.5# C-15
1oz Cascade
Safale US-05

Simple American Wheat
6# Bavarian Wheat DME
1oz Cascade (60 minutes)
1.5oz Cascade (Flameout)
Safale US-05

 

[JohnnyBrewGood]

If cost is a major motivating factor I would consider BIAB. I have a Blonde recipe that uses 8 lbs of 2row, .5 of C15 and 1.5 oz of cascade. Buying in bulk (not by the sack) but $59 worth of stuff from morebeer.com to get free shipping and hops from NIKOBREW'S sales that blonde cost me about $13 all in.

Also learn how to reuse yeast and buy US-05 when its on sale.

If you stove brew you might have to step up to turkey fryer setup which can be had for +-75 all in with a BIAB bag.

 

[Aristotelian]

Another thing you can do by brewing your own recipe is do a series with the same yeast and reuse the yeast cakes. e.g. You could make American Blonde, Cream Ale, APA, and IPA all starting from one packet of US-05 (dry) or WLP001 liquid. I am planning to brew all Saisons this summer.

Then the only ingredients you need to worry about from batch to batch are your steeping grains and hops.

 

[WI_Wino]

I have bought only extract kits before and find there are items included like bottle caps and priming sugar I don't use since I keg. It may not be many $$, but why buy if never used?? I even bought steeping bags in bulk so I don't need those supplied in a kit either. So, I am thinking only to buy my DME or LME, specialty steeping grains, yeast and hops.

I figure that I can brew a less expensive version of a kit if I buy a bulk of these items and get free shipping, but I'll do some price comps to make sure.

Does anyone have a summer favorite, light straw colored ale extract recipe with low IBU's that makes an easy drinking summer refresher? If you have done some comparison shopping for ingredients like I mentioned, how did you come out compared to assembled kits? I know that bulk can help, but I am many miles away from the closest LHBS or brewing club to buy lots of items and share.

Thanks!!

When I was doing extract batches, I found that the kits at RiteBrew were the same price or cheaper than buying the ingredients individually. I haven't done the math recently but you should check it out. They also don't include caps and priming sugar so perfect for keggers.

 

[freisste]

If you're looking for a favorite summer recipe, one that I've brewed a few times with good success (each a little different from the previous) is a cream ale based on the speckled heifer recipe from Norther Brewer (clone of spotted cow). Mine is an AG version that I made based on the extract recipe. However, you could easily check the price of the kit compared to ingredients. They are good about showing the recipe.

 

[Dixon9717]

Check your LHBS. Mine has a database on extract recipes.

 

[m00ps]

you really need to look into saisons. They can be as simple as 100% pilsner DME, 2oz of any noble hops, and a good yeast and youve got a beer thats as complex as it is refreshing. Id take any saison over a boring pale ale any day, any season

 

[dkevinb]

Even when I was first starting I never bought kits. I found recipes in books or online and adapted to what I liked. It's very easy to do. As for pricing, I looked at Northern Brewer's web site for a simple ale along the lines of what you were asking about. They have a SMaSH recipe that sounds pretty good.

6 lbs pilsner LME
1/2 oz Simcoe @ 60 min
1/2 oz Simcoe @ 15 min
1 oz Simcoe @ 5 min
1 pkt BRY-97 West Coast Ale Yeast

The kit costs $31.50 if you skip the priming sugar (I always use table sugar). If you bought the ingredients separately from them it would cost $32.97, so it's actually cheaper to buy the kit.

If I were going to do something like this I'd buy from my LHBS and make a few substitutions. I'd probably use light or amber LME instead of the pilsner, and Fermantis US-05 instead of the BRY-97 (I just like US-05). I'm not sure what he's selling Simcoe for right now, but I paid $2.25/oz for both Cascade and Citra recently. Buying local with these subs would cost me about $27. Steeping grains would add a bit more.

Bottom line is you may be able to save buying your own ingredients vs. buying kits or you may not, depending on the ingredients and where you buy. As someone mentioned, going to all-grain, particularly BIAB, will save a lot of money and not require much more equipment than what you have now. Substituting 8 lbs of 2-row for the LME and that recipe would cost me about $19 to brew. Less if I bought ingredients in bulk.

 

[LostHopper]

I look first to my LHBS even though it's not real close by.
I want them to stay in business. Mail order is fine until you realize you forgot something for tomorrow's brew day.

 

[DrunkPoetry]

If you really want to bring your costs down switch to all grain brewing, it takes a little longer but you will get better tasting beer at considerably less cost. You can set up a simple batch sparge cooler system for less than $40 ($25 rectangular 48t cooler, $5 stainless steel braid, $5 inline valve, $4 hose and hose clamps) This video will show you how - I switch about a year ago and its the best change in process I have made to date [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e24WLKJgCXc[/ame]

 

[MaryB]

Northern Brewer has the instructions sheets with list of ingredients online. I like Fat Tire ale and their clone of it is pretty good so I figured out the cost doing the all grain version versus the all grain kit and I save about $10-12...

 

[CA_Mouse]

Northern Brewer has the instructions sheets with list of ingredients online. I like Fat Tire ale and their clone of it is pretty good so I figured out the cost doing the all grain version versus the all grain kit and I save about $10-12...

More Beer's generic kits are the same way. All the ingredients are available on the website.

There are, also, lots of recipes here. Just click on the link at the top labeled RECIPES