Cost of a brew.

From what I've picked up on here you guys seem to spend between $20 - $30 on a batch. Is that right.

How much do you spend?
I've not done my first AG yet but for extract the cheapest would be as follows

1.5kg LME (Hopped) £8
1.5Kg LME £7
3oz vacum packed Hops £3
7g Dry yeast £1

£19

Or a complete 3kg ready hopped Lme and dry yeast kit £15 - £20.

You could make crap beer for under a tenner but Iwpouldn't waste my time.

So I guess the cheapest viable extract beer would be around $30.

Yeah, I'm at about 25-30. I buy my water and a bag of ice in addition to my ingredients and normally come out for less than 30 bucks. That is if I can get out of the store without being compelled to buy a new piece of brewing equipment.

My latest batch came in right around $33. I used more LME than DME on this one, so it was a bit less expensive than most.

Obviously depends on the batch...my vanilla oak barrel stout was a bit high because I needed oak chips ($3-4) and a vanilla bean ($4) in addition to everything else. But generally, figuring 12# grain, reusing yeast 8-10 batches, 2 ounces hops, corn sugar for priming, I'm < $20. That's not figuring in a few teaspoons of water crystals, Irish moss, and whatever my water/propane bill is.

I generally spend $20 on a batch, maybe a little less if I am reusing some yeast. Some other batches will run a bit higher, but it's definitely worth it.

I typically average about $20 per batch. As mentioned, depends on whats being made of course. When I was doing DME with steeping I ranged more like 25-35 per batch. My Porter rang in at $21 with quite a bit of various grains. $17 for the IPA. $14 for a pale ale. This doesn't include the yeast since I re-use when I can. That's the occasional $7 purchase.

Mine run from a high of $45 for a batch of Stiffy (6 oz of hops & 8.5 ABV) to under $15 for an AG Mild (1 oz hops & 4.1 ABV).

Good question,

I too have often thought my, say, 8Lb hammer,
costs about $20. per 5 gallons.
$16. for the 8Lbs of syrup, ie, $2.00 per pound, +
yeast and hops, =$20.
But each ale ???
Even though my 'hammer' is twice the alcohol of a cheap 'beer.'
And lots better,
I would seem they cost .40 each !!!
And I thought they were averaging .25 !!!
A store bought 'Old Milwaulkee' = .60 !!!
and my own creation: .40 !!!

At a dollar per pound however,
I can get syrup for a dollar per pound if I buy a barrel, [300 Lbs.]
8 Lbs syrup x $1. + hops and yeast, $12.00 per 5 gallons-per 50 beers.
Averages more like .25 each.
So in retrospect I can, after all, brew my 8 or 9 Lb Hammer for .25
I just have been buying 33Lb buckets of syrup for $2. a Lb.
And should be buying 300 Lb barrels for $1. a Lb.

Anyone want to split a barrel ?


J. Knife

£20 average for most of my extract brews (unless there are lots of speciality grains). It does dip below £20 depending on how much hops I have left over from previous brews. Also, like most here, I usually end up buying other equipment related stuff when I go to the LHBS. I must resist, I must resist!

My last batch, a vanilla porter cost me 18 bucks. Most of my batches average 22-28.

I just received all the grains and yeast for my next batch. An Oatmeal Stout and total damage was only $19 for a 5 gallon batch.

That's pretty darn cheap. I love all grain.

Let's see, after I bought my equipment, then upgraded, made changes, bought my keg fridge, faucets, more upgrades, ingredients, cleaners, sanitizers, the cost of various brewing injuries, repairs, bribes to SWMBO, plus my time at a nominal rate I figure I'm in for about $200 per 6 gallon batch.

Oh! You mean discount all that other stuff so we can justify all the money we save on store bought beer! Gotcha. In that case, a typical 6 gallon all-grain batch for me costs less than $10. Buying grain and hops in bulk and reusing yeast can really cut ingredient costs. Just don't forget about all that other stuff. We do it because it's fun, not because it's cost effective.

Prosit!

spoken like a true brewer tnlandsailer! that made me think of the things that i've bought and upgraded, that i don't even use anymore, but still have! i know i have 3 different sized kettles, rubbermaid cooler converted mash/lauter tun, etc.....

Can't count that.....that's comes under lifestyle on the budget! I'm talking grocery bill!

orfy said:

Can't count that.....that's comes under lifestyle on the budget! I'm talking grocery bill!

Click to expand...

Can you come and tell that to my wife and my accountant, please.

Oh, lets add the equipment in there... Ok, now I'm at $54 per batch. (computer geek, everything is documented )

desertBrew said:

Oh, lets add the equipment in there... Ok, now I'm at $54 per batch. (computer geek, everything is documented )

Click to expand...

That means you have to brew MORE. That will bring the cost per use down......as long as you never upgrade......

I have many hobbies,

Radio controled helicopters $2000 each I own 3... Can't drink them!

Bicycling, 2 bikes over $1000 each... Can't drink them!

Astronomy 1 big telescope over $900... Can't drink it!

Average cost of good beer is $7 a six pack, 5 gallons of home brew makes 8 six packs so at $7 a six you would be looking at $56. Say the average kit cost is $28 for 8 six packs, you just saved $28 that you can apply to equipment cost, I don't count time as I only brew when I have free time.

So this hobby acutally saves me money as I've already brewed enough beer to pay for my equipment and since I have limited space for brewing I doubt I'll ever buy a bunch of big expensive stuff.

tnlandsailor said:

That means you have to brew MORE. That will bring the cost per use down......as long as you never upgrade......

Click to expand...

I too am not really worried about the money but am fruggle enough to save on ingredients when I can. If I look at my current brewing equipment I could see replacing almost all of it already! Except for the carboys and tap system I want a bigger boiling pot, upgrade my mash tun, more burners and, and and. Heck, I'm not even into this a year yet and am at $900 in equipment

Oh yea, I got your IPA recipe in my secondary; can't wait to try it. Loved your Porter so figured I'd go down your recipe list

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_21_46_44

look at these

Stan Gibson said:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_21_46_44

look at these

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I almost ordered one of those last night, but I got to thinking about it.
Unless you've got yeast already, by the time you're finished adding what you need to get it, and do the 1 percent alcohol increase, you're at $25. I can get it that cheap locally and not have to pay shipping. Plus, it's not bargain basement stuff.

I spend closer to thirty bucks a batch, not including stuff like caps and sanitizer. On the other hand, I buy from a closely located retail shop where the owner can give free consulting services, and where you are likely to get a sample of someone's brew - so all taken in all, I think it is a reasonable price.

My last batch cost $19 and change. Granted it was a 3 gal. barleywine, but it was the same amount of grain as a regular 5 gal. batch. About $12 for grain and about $7.50 for the hops, three different 2 oz. packs at $2.50 each. Yeast reused from previous batch. I've got a ton of hops in the fridge now, so I shouldn't have to buy much more. I could probably do several 5 gal. batches all grain and still buy the yeast each for $20 or less.

Watch out when comparing US and UK costs - it's not only the exchange rate to worry about but also the short measures in the US gallon.

A UK gallon is 4.5 litres where the US version is 3.8l - so the UK version needs 20% more extract/grain to produce the UK 5g batch.

An part extract part grain IPA I have lined up next is going to cost me £25 for 5 UK gallons - thats about $42 which works out at $35 for a US 5g batch.

That will probably actually only cost me nearer $30 as I'll have enough hops and speciality grains left over for another recipe

Still seems expensive compared to some of the All grainers costs - I might need to work up a business case for buying more kit !

80/-

Im usually about 25 to 30 bucks per batch. Since I have all kinds of hops in supply at my house, its a little cheaper now. Mainly a grain bill, yeast and any adjuncts is all thats needed any more.

desertBrew said:

Heck, I'm not even into this a year yet and am at $900 in equipment.

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I'm right up there with you. Considering I tossed my first batch and I'm only brewing the fourth this weekend, I'm averaging around $300/batch! Of course, being a gadget freak meant I just HAD to build my own kegerator after the second batch. Damn impulses.

tnlandsailor said:

That means you have to brew MORE. That will bring the cost per use down......as long as you never upgrade......

Click to expand...

I believe the stock folks call that "dollar cost averaging". I will surely be applying this principle to my brewing hobby.

I'm envious of you folks averaging in the low to mid $20s per batch. Ingredients-wise (including bottled water), I'm around $35 for each of my brews. I do partials. Each has had a fair amount of LME and/or DME, so I guess that could be most of the difference from the all-grainers.

Since I'm in Washington, I'll be buying bulk hops from one of the farms on the other side of the state once I figure out which ones I'll use the most (shipping is minimal for me). Regarding bulk LME or DME, I can't seem to find deals worth the effort online for the LME - the DME is marginal at best. Mostly, the weight kills me in shipping costs. Where do you guys get such good deals?

Once I get rolling a little more, I'll start looking more into harvesting yeast, too. I'm sure that works into some of costs I've seen in this thread.

Drew,
All grain is usually quite a bit cheaper than extract or partial mashing. That's where you see these sub 20 costs, or near 20 costs. Other factors are bulk grain purchases, bulk hop purchases (7bucks/lb vs. 1.25-1.50 an ounce at the LHBS), re-using yeast.. etc.

I'm on batch #9, probably sometime in december.. although if I add it all up I've spent about 600-700 in gear.. so cost per batch is really inflated right now (if you factor equipment)

Something I haven't seen mentioned... propane! I fill my propane tank (5 gal) at 15 bucks a pop around every four batches. This is $3.75 a batch witch makes it rank right on up there with the cost of hops and yeasts.

My next 10 gallon batch of EKU will cost over $90 with shipping. 40 lbs of grain......wait till the wife sees that...OYE!

DyerNeedOfBeer said:

Something I haven't seen mentioned... propane! I fill my propane tank (5 gal) at 15 bucks a pop around every four batches. This is $3.75 a batch witch makes it rank right on up there with the cost of hops and yeasts.

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Good point. And propane is now $20/20lb tank around here. I also go through gallons of water between brewing and cooling with my immersion chiller. I really need to install a weldless tap on my kettle so I can build that counterflow chiller and use less water. How much were those parts again?

I'm looking forward to getting the new garage built. As part of the project, I'll be putting in a 200 gallon propane tank. That's for water heating, a new dryer, heat in the old garage and brewing! Propane is around $1/gallon delivered.

Nothing like burning $40K and feeling good about saving a few bucks.

Next year I should get a useful amount of hops. I planted eight rhisomes last April, four came up and I got all of three flowers in 2005. But, I'm thirty miles from the major hop growing areas in Oregon, so I should do better in 2006.

I have been kicking around the idea of getting a prpane tank delivered here. 250 gallon size or so. Can I legally add an attachment to fill small bottles off of it, or just keep it hard pipied into the garage? Curious. Also, I do buy bulk hops also. Usually 7-10 lbs at a time. I keep them in the freezer, and dole them out to club members if needed also. I also buy the small dry yeast packets for around .50, and keep them around in case a stick a primary. Seems to help out. There are all kinds of little money saving tips. You can buy all kinds of specialty grain on E-bay. Hell, for whats its worth, if you get a fewe buddies together, you can order a pallet (42 - 50 lb sacks) of grain. Shipping is lowered for the bulk rates. We are about to get a pallet delivered here for our club. We all pitch in and split the grain. Saves a lot of $$$$$ that way, but it will only work if you brew A-LOT! Oh yea, ask some of the guys here if they have leftovers to get rid of. Better to sell it cheap to someone who will use it, then to let it set around and go bad.....just my .02.

I live in the boonies - no HB supply shops around - and therefore end up paying about $10 shipping on my extract kits. That raises the cost per beer (for a 5 gal. batch) by nearly 20 cents! The kit itself is usually about $30 so that works out to about $0.75 per beer for me. I don't lose sleep over it though because a)it's more about the finished product than saving money for me and b)it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than buying micro at the store.

Hey BeeGee, where are you buying your propane? If you use those tank exchange systems you're paying way too much for propane. Take your empties to someplace that can refill them and you'll pay a lot less. I usually end up paying about $8 for 5 gallons of propane.


AHU

Depends on where you live. Up here in Washington, home of the tax gouge, I paid just shy of $14 to have my new tank filled. I only save a buck or two refilling instead of doing a swap. I suppose it won't cost as much the next time since it's hard to completely empty a tank and the rediculously over-inflated fuel prices are coming down. (crisis... what crisis?! - Exxon just reported record profits over $9billion )

At my local homebrew shop, the beer of the month is usually less than 25 bucks. My favorite kits run 30 bucks each.

At my HB store they do AG recipes that they have for 20-35 bucks depending on the brew.

My first AG and the cost with buying bulk is.

4kg pale malt £4
500g spec malt £2
Dry yeast £1
3oz hops £3

£10 compared to £19 for extract.

Mine run at about $25 at the moment as I'm constantly buying different hops and yeast as im trying to copy styles but normally a bit cheaper say 20 bucks.

I come in just around $25 for 5 gallons with mainly kits, yeast and a little additional hops. Stouts a little higher, about $30.

I'm now spending about $40 Australian (~$30 US) per batch, doing extract +specialty grain batches with a fair bit of hops. That also includes buying spring water to brew with though...

The cheapest you can get a slab (carton, case, whatever...) of good beer here is just over $40, and from 1 batch I get well more than two slabs, so I figure I'm still doing okay.