Hi I am planning to set up a brewing appreciation society at my university, including trying to brew some own batches and attending brewery tours, pub crawls etc. I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas or experience with setting it up and also had a quick question on how much a cheap/used brewing kit (enough for a uni club) would cost so I can start calculating a budget etc. Any suggestions are welcomed, thanks. Lars
Brewing appreciation society at university
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bbeckwith
Member
I dont know if you should buy a used brewing kit. You can simply buy a ver basic starter kit that cost around $100. The only other thing you will need to buy is a stainless steel pot that can hold the beer when cooking it. Oh and the empty bottles, but if you have the time or know the right people I would suggest simply collecting Sam Adams bottles and using them for bottling your clubs beer. And I dont want to forget you will need to more than likely start off with a ingredient kit brew which has all of the directions and ingredients you will need to brew a first batch. One five gallon batch will take up 46-50 bottles, depends on if you have a good strainer or not.
Good luck with this idea, it personally sounds great to me and wish I would have thought of that idea when I was in my younger years of college, but I was on the football team so I would have caught some crap from the coaches for something like that lol.
Good luck with this idea, it personally sounds great to me and wish I would have thought of that idea when I was in my younger years of college, but I was on the football team so I would have caught some crap from the coaches for something like that lol.
cimirie
Well-Known Member
My take on this would be this: first, determine how many people would be in this society. Then, determine how often you would collectively want to brew.
Based on your question on cost for a system that "would be appropriate for a uni society," I'm assuming this setup would be for collective use and you'd want to get regular brews going. As an appreciation society, I would suggest to dive in to all grain brewing right off the bat. It's more "traditional" so your society would get a better appreciation for the trade, it is more cost-effective per batch, it truly isn't as daunting as some make it sound (I switched from extract after my first batch with only slightly more reading), and dammit, your brew day is about 1.5 hours longer so that's 1.5 more hours of drinking time.
To support this idea, here would be my list and approximate cost:
Igloo cooler "homemade" mashtun (easily assembled with instructions from this forum): $60
7 gallon aluminum boil kettle (some will tell you stainless is far superior and aluminum won't work. Superior, maybe. Only route no way. And aluminum is much cheaper): $40 often less
3 fermenting vessels (buckets and Better Bottles would be my choice, and 3 so you can get a rotation going): $75
Bottling bucket: $25
Hydrometer: $7
Thermometer: $5
Wine thief: $10
Auto-siphon with racking cane: $15
Mash paddle: $10
Turkey frier propane burner (you could get a much better burner, but something simple like this works well): $30
StarSan (for sanitizing everything): $15
Funnel: $10
Bottle capper: $15
TOTAL INVESTMENT: $400
The starter kits bbeckwith is referring to really give you the bare minimum, but many of the things you'd want to support a group just wouldn't be included (multiple fermentors for example, wine thief, starsan, etc). You could go that route if you are unsure of support, but I promise you will be purchasing the rest after batch one. But if you are only interested in doing stovetop extract batches, and never more than one brew every five weeks, it is possible to get everything you need for under $150.
You could knock off $60 by going with extract batches and not putting together a mash tun, but you'd make that difference up in ingredient costs within the first 4-5 batches.
I'm assuming you'll have at least 5 people in your group and probably closer to 10. $40 bucks a head for an all-access pass to a solid setup ain't half bad.
My take anyways.
Ingredients per batch cost around $15-$20 per 5 gallons (for a "typical" strength brew" for AG and $30-$40 for extract. (this cost can be driven down based on bulk hop, bulk grain, and yeast recycling, but I figured I'd give a "startup" cost. 5 gallons will yield approx 50 bottles of beer.
This sounds like a great idea!
Based on your question on cost for a system that "would be appropriate for a uni society," I'm assuming this setup would be for collective use and you'd want to get regular brews going. As an appreciation society, I would suggest to dive in to all grain brewing right off the bat. It's more "traditional" so your society would get a better appreciation for the trade, it is more cost-effective per batch, it truly isn't as daunting as some make it sound (I switched from extract after my first batch with only slightly more reading), and dammit, your brew day is about 1.5 hours longer so that's 1.5 more hours of drinking time.
To support this idea, here would be my list and approximate cost:
Igloo cooler "homemade" mashtun (easily assembled with instructions from this forum): $60
7 gallon aluminum boil kettle (some will tell you stainless is far superior and aluminum won't work. Superior, maybe. Only route no way. And aluminum is much cheaper): $40 often less
3 fermenting vessels (buckets and Better Bottles would be my choice, and 3 so you can get a rotation going): $75
Bottling bucket: $25
Hydrometer: $7
Thermometer: $5
Wine thief: $10
Auto-siphon with racking cane: $15
Mash paddle: $10
Turkey frier propane burner (you could get a much better burner, but something simple like this works well): $30
StarSan (for sanitizing everything): $15
Funnel: $10
Bottle capper: $15
TOTAL INVESTMENT: $400
The starter kits bbeckwith is referring to really give you the bare minimum, but many of the things you'd want to support a group just wouldn't be included (multiple fermentors for example, wine thief, starsan, etc). You could go that route if you are unsure of support, but I promise you will be purchasing the rest after batch one. But if you are only interested in doing stovetop extract batches, and never more than one brew every five weeks, it is possible to get everything you need for under $150.
You could knock off $60 by going with extract batches and not putting together a mash tun, but you'd make that difference up in ingredient costs within the first 4-5 batches.
I'm assuming you'll have at least 5 people in your group and probably closer to 10. $40 bucks a head for an all-access pass to a solid setup ain't half bad.
My take anyways.
Ingredients per batch cost around $15-$20 per 5 gallons (for a "typical" strength brew" for AG and $30-$40 for extract. (this cost can be driven down based on bulk hop, bulk grain, and yeast recycling, but I figured I'd give a "startup" cost. 5 gallons will yield approx 50 bottles of beer.
This sounds like a great idea!
beerandloathinginaustin
Well-Known Member
When I was an organizer for Obama I managed to acquire 40 interns (aka free labor) on a campus with very little effort. If you want to feel like you have an S on your chest get a crew like that to do your bidding.
Anyway, if you could somehow set this up so that people could think they were interns you could have some willing servants. If they then realized they'd just have fun and brew beer....even better.
Anyway, if you could somehow set this up so that people could think they were interns you could have some willing servants. If they then realized they'd just have fun and brew beer....even better.
studmonk3y
Well-Known Member
Problem is in Australia everything costs 3x as much. 50L coolers you can get at walmart in the US for $20-30 go for $150 easy here. A turkey fryer burner is $200-300 here. When I moved here from the states, I almost didn't pick up the hobby again because of this. Then I discovered BIAB and "no-chill" brewing the ag equipment costs went way down. I use a 40L urn I got used for $180 (normally $300) and pieced the rest together on the cheap. I'd also recommend a means of fermentation temperature control, you can buy a cheap temp controller on ebay, do a search here. Pair it with a used chest freezer and you're golden. It's even a dual unit which would be good for your cold winters down in VIC. Up here in N. QLD I don't have to worry about my beer getting too cold, just too hot.
I don't know what's in your local area but Grain and Grape has a reputation for being one of the best brewshops in AU, its somewhere in VIC.
So yea with a lot of people chipping in it would be cheap as chips to get a small system going then you could grow from there.
beerandloathinginaustin
Well-Known Member
Interns will bring stuff. Just saying.
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