All time cheapest ingredients

[cee3]

Frankly, bull****! Complete, and absolute, bull****!

+1 on the completeness and absoluteness!

 

[ohiobrewtus]

Making good beer inexpensively is one thing, making cheap beer just to get loaded is quote another.

Just don't take this route and you'll be fine:

[ame]http://youtube.com/watch?v=FDPrl50RxeU[/ame]

 

[DonkeyShoes]

Most of us drink beer for the amazing variety of flavors that we are able to produce, the alcohol is great, but if I could drink a non-alcoholic beverage that tasted like Anderson Valley IPA, I would.

I concur. If there was N/A Dogfish Head 90 min IPA soda pop, I would drink it with breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

EDIT:

I also drink to get buzzed and/or drunk from time to time!

 

[sirsloop]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2A9257341E3DF381[/ame]

Watch these video's... and duplicate AT YOUR OWN RISK. Craig is a champion at making cheap beers even cheaper.

 

[DeathBrewer]

cheapest route:

buy 2-row (or even 6-row) in bulk.
kiln your malts and make your own specialty grains.
buy nottingham yeast once and start culturing it.
do all-grain with the bag-in-kettle method (little extra equipment)
grow your own hops.

that's it.

 

[jatlrdierk]

OK once again I have to clarify what I was asking for. In my first post I said we are not extremely concerned with taste. This means that we don't care if it has 6 different hop varieties, or six types of specialty malts. I didn't mean I want to make a beer out of table sugar, I just wanted to use cheap ingredients.

I think people are so used to telling their wives that they don't drink beer to get drunk that they have started believing themselves. I appreciate that some men on here are with me in admitting they like beer for what it's made for. That doesn't mean we drink anything just to get a buzz, we like it to taste good too.

By the way, does anyone have an all grain King Cobra clone recipe :cross:?

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

By the way, does anyone have an all grain King Cobra clone recipe :cross:?

King Cobra is made from grain??? I thought the recipe was

-Water
-3 oz. Wolfschmidt Vodka
-Beer flavored powder packet

Put it in a mason jar, and you're all set!

 

[BlindLemonLars]

Apparently I missed that episode...and I watched it religiously (when my wife wasn't around--she hates it).

The show has been renewed for another season, BTW.

[youtube]FArZxLj6DLk[/youtube]

 

[sully]

im suprised no one mentioned making mead.. yes honey can get expensive but you can find a local beekeeper that will sell you 50 pounds for 65 to 75 dollars sometimes cheaper.

 

[jameswardpeterson]

So, like, did you all only smoke pot in college because you liked the smell?

Well yea, that and I like how the smoke looks...

Good luck in your venture here. I hope you can make something cheap, but I also hope you get the curse of homebrewing addiction. It's much more of a hobby to me. But hell, I like getting piss drunk once and a while (still at that age...) and so do my friends. Just treat your homebrew as something special, something you created, not something you picked up down at the CVS on sale.

 

[fungusamungas]

When I used to live in Denver some beer distributers/warehouses would sell dented cans, extra lots, real cheap. just look them up in the yellow pages .

 

[EvilTOJ]

You could always try using duck food as an adjunct to keep the price down.

And OT; Yes, pregnant women get extremely hormonal and will fly into rages for no apparant reason. My ex has been pregnant the last 10 years

 

[Mutilated1]

Well homebrew beer is cheaper than beer from the store, but only if the beer from the store that you buy is some kind of microbrew or craft beer and only if you don't value your time. If you break it down on a $/beer basis, you're never going to be able to beat just picking up a couple of cases of whatever mass marketed store beer is on sale this week, especially if you value the time you're going to spend making it. Homebrewing is a rewarding hobby if you like to have a high quality hand cafted beer and take pleasure in the idea that you made it yourself. If you're just looking for cheap beer homebrewing isn't really going to work out.

If I was just going to go for cheap 5 gallons, I would try something like this:

* 8# 6 Row or 2 Row @ ~$1.35/#
* 1-2# Dextrose @ ~1.20/#
Shoot for OG close to 1.040
* 1/2 oz Liberty, Sterling, or Mt Hood @ ~2$ - ( I'd try and use leftovers from other recipes or grown my own. Maybe check eBay for "Hops" and get a pound of unknown variety )
Shoot for IBUs around 15
* Dry Lager yeast and reuse it as many times as possible.

You could maybe get your costs down to $15-16 for a 5 gallon batch, certainly under $20. Now if you do it for enjoyment, you don't have to consider what your time is worth - so if you your having fun making beer its play time. If your just trying to save money, you might as well buy a couple cases of whatever happens to be onsale at Wal-Mart or the grocery store.

Also, you might search this forum for "Apfelwein", if you catch the ingredients on sale you can get everything you need for $20 or less. A lot of people really like it, and I think most all of us have made a batch at some point or other.

 

[Chriso]

I just assembled 10 gal of Apfelwein

$25 - 10 gals Apple Juice
$4 - 2x 2lb bags of Brown Sugar
$2 - packet of Lalvin EC-1118 wine yeast
$1.50 - the dregs of my starter of Cry Havoc, AFTER I split it up into multiple jars for making starters for beer. Call each jar $2, and that leaves $1.50 left in dregs.
$32.50 for 10 gal of ~8.5% liquid panty remover.

I don't even drink the stuff, myself, it's too appley for me... but SWMBO, SWMBO's friends, and my roommate all love it dearly, and it's cheap and easy.

I think people are so used to telling their wives that they don't drink beer to get drunk that they have started believing themselves.

I'm sorry, but I think that's the most sexist and demeaning thing I've ever seen on this forum. Many of our SWMBOs are proudly involved in our beer lives, and many of us cherish that interaction and involvement. Some SWMBOs even go so far as to accompany their brewers to national conventions, and meet other HBTers and their SWMBOs, and have a really good time in the process. It's about friends and good conversation, and it's beer that brings us together. But it doesn't mean that we're just in it to get sh!tfaced. If that's all we cared about, we wouldn't have a Recipe DB here - we'd just have a 2-page list of hooch recipes.

How many people commit 18 months to brewing and souring a beer to reproduce a classic sour style, just so they can get f'ed up on it and run out in two days? Not many. That kind of brewing takes commitment. This is a hobby, not just a means to feed an addiction.

 

[CBBaron]

OK once again I have to clarify what I was asking for. In my first post I said we are not extremely concerned with taste. This means that we don't care if it has 6 different hop varieties, or six types of specialty malts. I didn't mean I want to make a beer out of table sugar, I just wanted to use cheap ingredients.

I think people are so used to telling their wives that they don't drink beer to get drunk that they have started believing themselves. I appreciate that some men on here are with me in admitting they like beer for what it's made for. That doesn't mean we drink anything just to get a buzz, we like it to taste good too.

By the way, does anyone have an all grain King Cobra clone recipe :cross:?

Your first paragraph is much better than you originally asked for. What I get from that is you want simple recipes that work well and don't cost an arm or a leg. You don't have to have award winning beer but you want a quality home brew.
2-row and a single crystal in bulk are a good basis for alot of beers. If you feel like splurging you can pick up an extra specialty grain or 2 to vary the flavors some more. Grow several varieties of you own hops or buy the hops in larger quantities and freeze them. Dry yeast is much cheaper than liquid.

However I am offended by your next 2 paragraphs. I usually drink a single beer in the evening. It is seldom that I open 2 beers in an hour. And the few times I have gotten drunk it has not been with beer. I feel no need to justify my beer to my wife. So NO I DO NOT DRINK BEER TO GET DRUNK.
Second King Cobra is not beer. It is malt liquor which has about the same relationship with beer as coolaid has with fruit juice. It is produced using industrial processes that are difficult to recreate at home and not worth the effort.

So while the question you want to ask may be very valid you attitude will upset many brewers here who are proud of the quality beer they produce.

Craig

 

[the_bird]

However I am offended by your next 2 paragraphs. I usually drink a single beer in the evening. It is seldom that I open 2 beers in an hour. And the few times I have gotten drunk it has not been with beer. I feel no need to justify my beer to my wife. So NO I DO NOT DRINK BEER TO GET DRUNK.
Second King Cobra is not beer. It is malt liquor which has about the same relationship with beer as coolaid has with fruit juice. It is produced using industrial processes that are difficult to recreate at home and not worth the effort.

So while the question you want to ask may be very valid you attitude will upset many brewers here who are proud of the quality beer they produce.

Craig

+1. I've stayed away from this thread because of the original tone. I drink beer because I like beer. Is it nice to get a buzz going on occassion? Sure. Is it nice to get ripped on rare occassion? Sure. I probably drink enough to get a mild buzz maybe a couple times a month; it's usually one pint a night, and not even every night. Beer is something that I take a helluva lot of pride in, not because it can get me loaded but because I love the taste and I love the art of putting it all together.

So, when someone who's brand-new to the forum, comes on and implies that we're all here just to get drunk... well, yeah, I get a little offended.

When you make the assumption that we're all homebrewers because we love getting drunk... from my experience on this forum, I'd wager that the majority of the people here drink pretty much like I do; one or two a night, a few more on the weekends, on rare occassions a LOT more. Don't make assumptions about a group of people you don't know.

 

[bergman1118]

sorry if i'm out of line here, but why don't we all just calm down and have a homebrew?

 

[lynwitte]

I would like to throw my .02$ in. First i enjoy my limited experince as a homebrewer and find myself enjoying a brew more than in the past where i guzzled BMC after BMC with a few friends just to get piss drunk. Second i cant buy any beer even 30 packs of old mill as cheap as i could make it for, granted i reuse my yeast which is minimal at best since he's asking for cheap....cheap means dry and reuse mulitple times. So log onto Northernbrewer or other fine establishment find a kit you like and order a bunch of them to take advantage of there shipping. Or 2 take there recipe to your LHBS and buy from them but i can order the ingredients alot i mean alot cheaper online.

 

[jatlrdierk]

MOD EDIT: Don't double post.

 

[jatlrdierk]

sorry if i'm out of line here, but why don't we all just calm down and have a homebrew?

Indeed! Those were what I like to call 'jokes.' The wife bit and the King Cobra request were not meant to be taken seriously. I didn't realize that a group of beer slingers could be so sensitive!

It seems as though some see beer drinkers as divided into 2 groups. First there are those who only drink to enjoy the taste. They don't drink for any sort of buzz or enjoyment of the effects of alcohol, and can't stand those who do. The other group only drinks the cheapest pigswill they can get their hands on. Their only goal in life is to get so hammered they can't see straight. I hate to break it to y'all, but there are some folks like me who lie somewhere in the middle of those 2 groups. We enjoy a good beer and a good buzz. Is that so wrong?

 

[sully]

when i need money for brewing ingredients i put in the the extra 8 hours on saturday, and i told swmbo long ago that saturday money is MY money. luckily i have a job (i am a carpenter) that i can work extra hours if i want to. no i am not the boss of the company i get paid by the hour, sure no kids and i am still young but money is tight across the board and your not the only broke dude in america. it is easier to buy pigswill than to brew it in my experience. my ONLY american pilsner attempt turned out horrible compared to any other beer i have brewed. and no i am not sorry for the rant, and i am not drunk although i am enjoying a sam adams.

 

[the_bird]

Closing this thread. There are plenty of threads around about brewing on the cheap (and most of the answers have already come up; cheap ingredients, bulk ingredients, dry yeast, re-use yeast to summarize four of the biggies). The OP continues to want to make all kinds of assumptions about HBT'ers as a group that are way over simplistic, which I thought my post made clear.