I did have issues doing that as it left a powdery white chalky calcium/lime film inside the bottles. I then had to soak them in vinegar to remove that. Now I fill them with water prior to the Oxyclean label removal.
I apologize if this gets off topic. You all got me thinking about Hops By The Pound which I have never done. So I did a usage analysis and was not surprised to find that I really should buy Cascade, Centennial, EKG anf Fuggles by the pound. A tiny bit surprised to see that maybe I should buy Simcoe in quantity. A solid *maybe* for Chinook, Columbus, Northern Brewer and Williamette. So where is a good place to buy? Nikobrew is certainly one option - where else is good ??
Chadwick put it SPOT ON...
This has to be a hobby first and save you money second....well at least for me it is.
It's way too much work to go through for saving some bucks on a case of beer.
Be honest with yourself, if you really cannot afford to buy a case of beer - you're doing something wrong.
Not being unsympathetic - just practical.
On the subject of hops, I have found that a lot can be saved on hops by the techniques you use. First wort hopping gives you a few more IBUs and also contributes the equivalent of a 20 minute flavor addition. I have also been using post-boil steeping which gives you bittering, flavor and aroma. In many cases between these 2 techniques I save a couple of ounces of hops along with reducing the beer wasted due to trub. That can add up to a 4 or 5 buck savings for a batch.
Bob
Here's a real time saver - don't remove labels!
"Here's a real time saver - don't remove labels!"
That's something I don't care much to see along with reused bottle caps. And I've seen them both (at the same time). If you are cutting that many corners what else are you doing or not doing? It's a bit off putting.
And I have some beer bottled with labels still attached as I hadn't accounted for the number I'd need and gave too many away without removing the labels from my newer bottles. But I don't care for that.
It took me less than 10 minutes to get warm water and Oxyclean in to my bucket to soak the bottles. The labels, depending on brand, usually come off on their own leaving me with potentially just needing to remove the glue if it's present. Maybe another 10-15 mins for another day. It may save a little time but it makes for poor presentation IMO.
It's true though. Might as well bottle it in mason jars. Or old spaghetti sauce jars...
Aside from the big ones, like reusing bottles, buying in bulk, and washing yeast, some other good ones for me were:
Using tap water instead of bottled water. I bought a bottle of campden tabs to treat it 2 years ago for $2 and it's still half full. (Optimism!)
Using some sort of chiller vs an ice bath. Yes you will run more water this way, but even that can be repurposed, and it's way cheaper than ice.
These 2 things save me $10 per batch at least.
Why use campden tabs??? With beer you are boiling your wort.... campden is anti bacterial..... It's kind of redundant isn't it?? Chlorine & flouride should be the concerns as well as the mineral profile.
H.W.
*golfclap*
We're not moonshiners here. Respect the product of your labor enough up package it properly.
FYI, I live up north now. They think they know what real BBQ is. They are wrong. Confirmed with my southern co-workers and BBQ served on anything other than a paper product is just not quite right. Tony Roma's is not great product.The best BBQ I ever ate came on a hotdog boat. Not the fancy checkered kind, the elongated coffee filter kind. good point. I'm gonna start saving spaghetti jars. Or the lids, I aleady keep the jars.
to get rid of cloramine and chloromide that cause off flavors in beer.
Other cost savings to pursue might include:
Switching to all grain
invest in kegging
choose recipes that have more common ingredients
add adjuncts to lift alcohol content (this is at the cost of quality)
What is adjuncts?
I actually do save money brewing. I'm able to do this because I brew BIG beers more often than not. I also BIAB. If I was doing extract brewing I could not come out ahead. As it stands now, I typically have $30 invested in a batch of barleywine that would cost me over about $15 per 4-pack to buy.
The math is easy to work out.
If I purchased 48 bottles of barleywine at a cost of $15 per four the cost for 48 bottles would be $180
Make it myself - cost = $30-40
I make about 8 batches of this stuff a year. At a savings of $140 per batch over the cost of buying it, I save about $1120 per year brewing my own. I have about $500 invested in my equipment, so it paid for itself within the first year.
EDIT: I should have mentioned that I also reuse bottles. I use Sierra Nevada bottles. These are good durable bottles. I've only had one bottle chip in three years of reusing the bottles I have now. And that one that chipped did so because of a mistake I made. So my bottle cost isn't something I consider a cost. Friends have happily rinsed out their SN bottles and saved them for me. I have more than enough right now to have 8 batches bottled at any given time.
I order my hops in bulk from a hop farm online.
I order my grains in bulk (10lb packages) from Morebeer online.
I often make my own crystal malt and roasted malt at home.
How tough is the barleywine? I'd like to try that next.
Ditto on the above, also can anyone (preferably Canadian as I'll have a better chance of finding it) recommend a good barley wine as I'd love to try one sometime before I commit to trying it myself. Heard good things, would just be nice to benchmark against something.
Otherwise they probably still sell "BEER"
Currently repurposing New Belguim bottles....not buying.
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