Time to pull the trigger...

[LeapinLoungeLizard]

... and finally move from lurker/info stalker to real participant.

I'm new to brewing, having wanted to take the plunge for years, but I had a little challenge convincing my husband that the initial investment was justifiable. I finally ran the numbers on the cost of funding both our beer habits vs. the cost of brewing and in early '13 I started extract brews. I've got my fourth batch bubbling away now and am spending Thanksgiving morning trying to figure out the cheapest way I can get set up to go all-grain.

When not brewing, I raise two kids, two dogs, and 6 chickens, cook, make bread, attempt to grow food (considering attempting hops this spring) try to find time to ride my bikes (one hardtail mtn bike and a 750 Honda Shadow) and want to try making everything from scratch at least once. Once upon a time I loved to SCUBA dive, but haven't found much time for that lately. I attempt to cover the cost of all the fun as self-employed web/graphic designer (despite which I am woefully unsophisticated with forum knowledge and hope I end up posting this correctly) with a side-biz making jewelry and anything else that strikes my fancy and I can feasibly sell.

Thank you all for satisfying my nearly insatiable information appetite. Hope I can repay the favor!

And Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

 

[MindenMan]

Thank you for such an honest and heart felt post, and hanging it all out there. Of course, welcome to HBT, and Happy Thanksgiving. My wife bought me a basic home brew kit going on two years ago We have learned how much more economical it is to brew our own beer, than to buy it in the store. AG is less expensive over Extract brewing almost all the time. The only down side to home brewing is you can't drink it right away. You may already have the basic equipment for AG and not know it. What size is the pot you boil your extract batches in for starters?

 

[cswalker]

I had a little challenge convincing my husband

That's a new one for me!

Welcome, and enjoy! I'm looking to move into all-grain as well, but my problem is the space and storage! Also, looking into growing my own hops, but I live in environment that does not bode well for hops. Though, I've seen it happening a lot more.

Keep us informed with your projects.

 

[LeapinLoungeLizard]

Yeah, it amused me as well that the hubby took convincing. You guys may also appreciate this little story. A friend wanted to get into brewing, so I invited her over to help out with a recent brew. Families are friends, so they all came over and we had dinner. Guys were out back cooking and she and I were inside brewing. We were all drinking though (well, not the kids..)

MindenMan, I've just got a 5-gallon brew kettle that I cook on the stove. Takes nearly an hour for the old girl to get to a boil, so I figure I need a propane burner and a bigger pot, thus the prohibitive expense. Though if you have suggestions for another way, I'm all ears. And if anyone can suggest a cost-effective co2 tank and regulator I'd love to hear it. I was given a used corny keg and have a little fridge to convert to kegerator, but that can't find CO2 for under about $120... Other than all this expense, it sure is cheaper to brew :cross:

 

[maf58d]

BIAB is easy and inexpensive. I do stove top in 2 kettles, twice the heating power, also use the kettle lid to get temp up quicker and use as a heat baffle, pulled back a bit to control boil. If you have another kettle you can sparge in it. also if your kettles fit in oven, you can preheat it to about 160 to 170 degrees then put your mash in for the hour to hold good temp for conversion.
Partial Mash is extra easy this way with 4 or 5 pounds of grain mashed in one kettle, rinsed in another, 3rd runnings in a third kettle that is then added back to the first two, with the extract, to get the volume up to 6 gallons for the boil.

---Mark F.---

 

[LeapinLoungeLizard]

Oven! (as she smacks forehead firmly with palm of hand) That's brilliant. I think I might have to look into the BIAB method. I can afford a couple more small kettles. Thanks!

 

[davekippen]

We are glad you are no longer lurking! No matter how you make your beer, you have a family here that cant wait to give you all the advice that you never wanted

 

[fujieagle]

Welcome aboard. But, be warned. The hobby can be addicting.

 

[beernut70]

A couple of years ago around this time of year I found a turkey fryer on sale at Sam's Club for $45 included a 9 gallon pot. If you can sew it's easy to make a nice bag to fit the pot for about $5 and you have an all grain setup. I used to have a cooler mash tun but haven't used it since I tried BIAB.

 

[MindenMan]

I don't know if any are left at Walmart or not, but I bought two 30 qt turkey fryer setups for 20.00 each. At Home Depot, as well as Lowe's they sell paint strainers for 5 gallon buckets. A set of two for less than 4.00. Vio'la a brew in bag. Walmart also had some cheap stock pots, I believe they had both 12 and 16 quart for less than 20.00. Granted the quality was cheap, but if you are only boiling water and nothing with sugar in it. When I started AG, all I had was a 5 gallon pot I used to mash in, and also had to be my BK. There is a lauter tun/vorlauf setup cheap. What is lauter, and vorlauf? Short version. One process (vorlauf) is re rinsing the mashed grain with the water it was in (first step) and lautering is is using strike water (extra boiled water) to further rinse the grain of it's sugar. A Zapap tun is two five gallon bucket with one placed inside the other.
Take two food grade plastic buckets ($4.00 ea at HD) and drill a miriad of small holes in the bottom of one of them, and install a spigot ($3.00) near the bottom of the other. I didn't want to literally drill 500 holes in the bottom of the inside bucket, so I drilled a 100 or so of larger holes, and put window screen to cover them from letting grain into the bottom bucket. So, let's start bring water in the Brew Kettle to approx 165* F and add approx. 10 - 12 pounds of grain, and shoot for a temperature of 150-154*F. Stir well, and cover and put into 160* F or so oven, or just wrap up tightly for 60 or so minutes and hope temperature stays within 4-6*F from starting temp. Don't worry, it will take a few tries. AQt that point pour everything into inside 5 gal bucket. Use a pitcher of some sort, to pour the bottom water back into the top 5 or 6 times (YMMV), and drain completely in to mash tun (5gallon pot) now add 3 or 4 gallons of hot, not boiling water to inside bucket. Cover, wait ten minutes, and start to recirculate like before for another 5 or ten minutes, and add that water the water in your BK and turn the heat on gently to prepare to boil your now pot of wort. Are you with me so far? if so l will continue.

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the group +1 on the inexpensive efficiency of BIAB brewing.

 

[LeapinLoungeLizard]

You guys rock. I'm not setting foot in Walmart today (Black Friday 'n' all) but I'm heading over to their website now.

MindenMan, I'm following. Good stuff. Continue at will!

 

[bad67z]

Here are some good deals on a turkey fryer or two in your neck of the woods.

http://slo.craigslist.org/grd/4179563233.html

http://santamaria.craigslist.org/hsh/4167859267.html

http://santamaria.craigslist.org/for/4215522685.html

as for the BIAB, it is a great way to go and inexpensive compared to many of the other options. Oh and welcome to the party.

 

[LeapinLoungeLizard]

Already contacted a couple of the craigslist guys! Thanks so much.

I don't know why I hadn't seriously considered BIAB before now. I think I'm going BIAB for the next brew!

 

[beernut70]

Those Craigslist deals look good. Sam's club has the one I have listed but no price it's in-store only. Found it in Amazon a bit more expensive now, but you might find a good deal now that Thanksgiving is over. The stand is really sturdy I use a 15 gallon keggle on mine now. Lowes and Home Depot sell fryers also.

http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Classic-Professional-Turkey-Fryer/dp/B002T99SB2

Hope you find something that works for you.

 

[causeimthesquid]

I used to take great pride in how cheap my brew setup was. Right now I am in-between systems as I try and get my keggles up and running. Hopefully you find some of this helpful:
For a mashtun, I just used a picnic cooler. I didn't make any alterations or anything. After about an hour I would scoop my grain into a ZaPap lauter tun that others have described here (bucket with holes in the bottom).

I was very limited by brewpot volume and they seem to get exponentially more expensive once you get into the larger pots. I had a 5-gal and 3-gal Stainless pot (one was my original extract pot, the other was the spaghetti pot). I would split the batch between the two pots in order to get 5.5 gal of total boiled wort. In order to cool the 5.5-gal volume, I would put both worts into my 6-gal bottling bucket and use an imersion chiller right next to the kitchen sink. I also put a mesh bag into the bottling bucket which acted as a coarse filter (with extra settling space above the bucket's spigot as well) and I was able to remove a good deal of grain/hop debris. Once chilled, I could use the spout to pour into my sanitized carboy, aerating the chilled wort. I have gotten really fancy and even put a strainer full of leaf hops in a funnel and integrated a sort of hopback as well.

That's how I dealt with limited boil space and a limited budget. Once you start to really understand the processes you will find lots of kitchen equipment you already own can be quite serviceable.

Hopefully there is something in there you find useful. As for brewing beer to save money, my experience is that it is like buying a boat to save money on fish.

 

[LeapinLoungeLizard]

As for brewing beer to save money, my experience is that it is like buying a boat to save money on fish.

HA! Have you seen my house? We've got a boat we're trying to sell. There's a great saying something along the lines of the two best days of a boat owners life are the day it's bought and the day it's sold.

I agree that saving money is really not the primary reason to brew. I just have limited budget for this obsession,uh hobby, and SO love all the help from those of you who have been there/done that.

I'm giddy at the thought of buying nothing but grain (no LME/DME) next brew. That's a little pathetic, isn't it?

Dang. I just realized that I either need to buy co2 tank/regulator or start de-labeling & cleaning bottles before I can brew again.

 

[MindenMan]

When I was new to this site, green as grass, and the hole in my head my Mother had previously mentioned was wide open it seemed, everyone was helpful to me and patient with me, so I am paying it forward every chance I get. Once again, thank you to everybody.
BTW, get scrubbing on those bottles. I still bottle as I don't have anywhere to keep a keg cold. It also lets me keep better track of how much I drank that day/night. If you can swing kegging go for it.

To continue... I really don't know at this point if there is anything to add, as I believe all the gaps have been filled in. The only I see that may been missed, is if you are boiling down into 2 pots, the hop utilization may be less than optimum. I really can't comment on the less than the optimum use of hops due to the fact I generally add hops on the lower end of a given style.

I almost forgot, the definition of a boat is: a hole in the water into which you pour money.

 

[seckert]

I would add one thing to this. if you buy a turkey fryer that has been used. ensure you clean the ever living crap out of it to get the grease off of it. I have one turkey fryer I fry things in and one for brewing in. my brew pot has never nor will it ever have grease/oil in it. so just be careful about buying used as you might never be able to get all the grease out.

 

[Epimetheus]

Welcome!

MindenMan, I've just got a 5-gallon brew kettle that I cook on the stove. Takes nearly an hour for the old girl to get to a boil, so I figure I need a propane burner and a bigger pot, thus the prohibitive expense.

Here, I use a 8 gallon Tamale steamer on the electric glasstop stove. It used to take an hour or more to get to a gentle boil until I built a heatstick. Now, 7 gallons get to a vigorous boil MUCH faster than an hour. Search for how to make a heatstick. I built a 1500W 120V version. If you are not comfortable with building electrical devices, there are commercial 1000W heatsticks for keeping cattle watering troughs from freezing.

I sewed a BIAB bag and hop sack from voile curtains from WallyWorld. Been doing all grain for a year now.

go for it!

 

[masskrug]

Welcome!

Economical? Yes, once you acquire the equipment and go AG/BIAB.

I can make a 22oz bomber for about a dollar. Try finding a (quality) bomber for under $5 these days at your liquor store. Yesterday I saw a 24 oz can of Natural Light at the gas station for $1.99.