Cost of Home Brewing

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Someguyinahat

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I always hear (and read) that home brewing is cheaper than just buying beer. However, I have found that the kits I use that make five gallons would cost me about the same as just buying the same amount (of good beer). I'm paying between 40-70 dollars per kit (depending on alcohol content). Am I getting ripped off? Is it cheaper to buy ingredients separately instead of a kit? Or is the whole "it's cheaper to home brew" just a myth?
 
40-70 for a kit seems pretty steep. Once you buy bulk hops, and go all grain and reuse yeast, prices drop significantly.

Where are you buying your kits from?
 
I just did a batch of DIPA recently and spent about 55 bucks on the kit... THe local brew store sells one of their DIPA's for $12/growler... SO thats $24 a gallon x 5 = $120.00. SO yeah, that saved me a bunch, plus if I start all grain, I cut my cost in half
 
There have been a lot of discussions on this topic. Do a quick search and you'll find numerous answers.

Personally, I think it costs about the same, especially when you factor in equipment. AG brewing is quite a bit cheaper though, since malt extract is so expensive. But if you buy in bulk, it cuts cost quite a bit. Trouble is storing it...

Anyway, take my advice, do a search.
 
correct, We got all of our equipment for free... Hand me downs... But think of it as an adventure. I love drinking MY beer... my hops are 12 feet tall now and cant wait to start a brew with my own...
 
Rememberits a hobby. Just from reading online it wont save you much in the U.S. but in Canada you save a bit.
the canned kits are more expensive than buying ingredients as well.
 
If you buy Keystone or other cheap beer - you usually are better just continuing if cost is the driving factor. As you said, you buy "good beer" which I am "ass"uming is the $7 - $10 a six pack craft beer selection - then home brewing will indeed save you money over that.

You say you are paying $40 - $70 a kit? Seems really high to me. I am an all grain brewer and most kits with ~6% ABV runs me less than $20. Last extract kit ran me $30 or so for the same style, so it appears your costs are a little high wherever you are buying.
 
To save money I believe that you have to go all-grain. But regardless of the ingrediants it is fun and interesting.
 
I can say with some confidence that no one I know (and I'm in a pretty large HBC) brews to save money.

With equipment, the inevitable upgrades, the eventual kegerators, etc... I would guess fewer than 1% ultimately SAVE money by brewing their own beer.

That's not why folks do it.
 
My extract kits have cost $30-$45, from LHBS and also AHS. The higher gravity ones run into the $50-$60+ range.

The way I see it, after investing all this money into equipment, I have to brew lots of batches to recoup some of those costs...which is exactly what I plan on doing.
 
You don't actually have to go completely to all grain to save a ton of money. A few months ago I bought a 5 gallon "water" style igloo cooler and mash about 75% of my grains and still use my 6 gallon stock pot. $25.00 invest saves me about $10 per batch and the beer is much better.
 
I make 5 gal batches, that comes out to 50 bottles. I All-grain, and buy my ingreditents in bulk when I can. I also harvest my yeast. Excluding equipment of course, I spend $15 for a lawnmower beer to $40 for a big beer like an Old Ale or Barleywine.

That's $0.30 to as high as $1.00 I'll say.

The average Porter or IPA cost me about $20 a batch.

That's $2.40 a six pack. Not bad.


Now having said all that I don't care about the cost of the beer. I'm doing it for the pleasure of the hobby. The more I can save the more I can spend.
 
Extract kits seem way over priced but really its the extract itself. I decided just to go AG right away to avoid this but buying grain by the pound I think its going to be a bit less than 30 bucks for a basic hefewiezen. Not quite the savings I was hoping for but next Ill get a crusher and buy bulk. If you save your yeast too Id imagine you can do a basic 5 gal for 15 or so. Then you are saving some. I didn't really get into it to save money though. Thats just what I tell the wife. I got into it to learn more about beer. Its also nice to always have beer in the fridge too. I only worry about not getting to drink as much craft brew but I suppose the local homebrew meetups make up for it a bit.
 
You are not going to save money on most beers. I guess it depends on the brew. If you are making something like a big Belgian then you may save some, but I do it because I like brewing.

I get great stisfaction drinking something I made. Thinking up a recipe and having it turn out great is a good feeling.If I save a couple of bucks then that is an extra, but I don't do it to save money.
 
Thanks everyone! I definitely love brewing and will continue to brew for brewing's sake. I buy my kits from a home brew stores in CT. I just had heard time and time again that home brewing was cheaper than purchasing beer already made. When I started brewing I did the math and found it to be about the same price so I thought I must have been doing something wrong. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I hope to go all grain someday but I don't think I'm ready for it yet.
 
I can get extract kits from Zellers for $16, and Coopers for $22 from my lhbs
 
Yeah Coop is 19 at my shop and the Muntons is even cheaper but tbh I never even considered making those.
 
Brewing is a fun past time. If you don't enjoy it, buying beer will always be a better value. If you do enjoy it, then the cost is a fairly minor issue.
 
Those sound like expensive kits to me. Once you are confident enough to put your own "kits" together, you can trim costs in lots of ways.

Here's what I do:

1) Buy hops in bulk. Farmhouse Brewing Supply, Hopsdirect, labelpeelers, or freshops all have decent prices. Farmhouse brewing is my favorite, mainly because the prices are low, the turnaround time is fast, and the 4 oz packages are convenient. Hops at a LHBS are 2-4 times more expensive than a bulk seller.

2) Get yeast from a local brewery. My local brewery gives me a ton of Wyeast 1056 whenever I drop off a mason jar. Takes a day or two for them to get around to filling it, but I dont need to use a starter and I save money and the quality of the beer is actually better.

2.5) Just use dry yeast, it's cheap. Unless you're brewing an incredibly complex and yeast-centric beer, you can usually substitute Safale US05 (Pale Ales, IPAs, American Barleywines), S04 (english style ales, stouts), or Safbrew (belgians). Dry yeast is cheaper than vials or packets and you don't need to mess with a starter.

3) Find the cheapest malt or extract seller among your LHBS's. One of my LHBS's sells Briess LME for $2.10 a pound. They charge less if I re-use and bring in my own container instead of getting a new one each time.

Eliminating equipment costs, I am down to around $20 for a 5 gal batch of IPA, just under $40 for a barleywine.



Someguyinahat said:
Thanks everyone! I definitely love brewing and will continue to brew for brewing's sake. I buy my kits from a home brew stores in CT. I just had heard time and time again that home brewing was cheaper than purchasing beer already made. When I started brewing I did the math and found it to be about the same price so I thought I must have been doing something wrong. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I hope to go all grain someday but I don't think I'm ready for it yet.
Click to expand...
 
An extract kit is around $35 - with liquid yeast. Lets add in some whipping and call it $40 a kit for 50 12 oz beers. Around 80 cents a bottle.
Where do you get good beer for that price?
Of course it all depends on what you consider "good" beer is. You may very much enjoy something I will think is mediocre and not enjoy.

If you know what you like, you can save some money and buy in bulk, extract as well. That $40 may become closer to $30, or 60-65 cents a bottle for good beer.

All grain is much cheaper, but requires a lot more time, though all grain brewers tend to enjoy what they do.
 
Of course you can save money brewing your own beer! No one says you have to go out and buy expensive equipment to make good beer. And even if you do, once you've depreciated the cost over a couple hundred batches it's not so much.

For example, lets say you went all out and spent $3000 on the cadillac of brew rigs. Divide that cost by 200 batches of beer (you'll surely get way more than that). That adds $15 per batch to the cost of your beer. Buying bulk hops and malt and harvesting your yeast, a typical batch would probably average at about $15-30 for ingredients (the higher number is if you have to have it shipped). Now you're at $30-$45 per 5 gallon batch.

Craft beers here are typically $8+ per four-pack. That means it would have to cost you more than $104 per batch not to save money over buying a comparable craft beer.
 
You can buy 2 kits (avg kit that is), with shipping spend the same money. Where are you buying your kits from?
 
I counted up all I spent on the ingredients for a 5 gallon batch, and it came to $20.
6 lbs extract = $12
specialty grains = $3
hops = $3
yeast = $2

Sure, I spent $50 on the trip to the store but I had to buy everything I needed to brew (minus brew pot and carboy, which I'm borrowing, for now).

We really can't afford to buy any more beer. I'm a full-time student and my husband only has part time work right now. It's homebrew or no brew. It seems vastly cheaper to me, since at $20 a run for ingredients I should be able to make about 50 bottles of beer. That's, what, 40 cents a bottle, or $2.40 a sixpack?
 
ArcLight said:
An extract kit is around $35 - with liquid yeast. Lets add in some whipping and call it $40 a kit for 50 12 oz beers. Around 80 cents a bottle.
Where do you get good beer for that price?
Of course it all depends on what you consider "good" beer is. You may very much enjoy something I will think is mediocre and not enjoy.

If you know what you like, you can save some money and buy in bulk, extract as well. That $40 may become closer to $30, or 60-65 cents a bottle for good beer.

All grain is much cheaper, but requires a lot more time, though all grain brewers tend to enjoy what they do.
Click to expand...


The only $40 extract kits I have found in my local brew shops are American pilsners. A beer I am not particularly fond of. I'm typically spending more like 55-60$
 
In Ontario's liquor stores a good beer is $3-$5 for 500 ml which is $120-$200 per 20 litres. I can get a Brew House kit for $29 which makes me about 20 litres give or take. So, looking at these numbers, I'm 'saving' about $100. But would I go through this much beer if I didn't make it? No. Would I need a kegerator that cost me $400 to build? No. Would I need the $50 corny kegs? No. Or the turkey fryer? No.

I have to say that I haven't saved by making my own but it enhances my enjoyment of any given day knowing that my hobby is ready whenever I want. Just like my bicycling passion does not 'save' me any money, though it improves my health and well-being....


It's all about quality of life.

B
 
I figure this way. I like to drink craft beer. It is not uncommon for me to go out and spend $100 on beer and maybe get 15-20 different bottles, that is on a good day. Sometimes it might only be $10. Now if you are use to drinking a case of race car beer you are going to be spending more brewing your own. I paid $30 at my LHBS for my Amber Ale, it made 45 bottles and two Growlers. I just bottled my milk stout that cost $42 and it made 46 bottles and a Growler. So for $70 I have 91 bottles and 3 growlers out of two batches. So it would have cost me $68 for 4 cases of yuengling. In my eyes I find it worth it.
 
I spend WAY WAY more money home brewing than I did buying beer. I WAS a 1-2 beers a month drinker, then discovered this hobby. Now I am MAYBE a case a month drinker but a multiple case a month giver away lol. I just REALLY enjoy the mad scientist aspect of the hobby. I have to make a couple of quaffers soon as the supply is getting low. But then I think I am gonna tackle the 120 min IPA. I have never tasted one but trying to get to that ABV intrigues me.
 
I don't understand how people are spending so much on ingredients, even if they're brewing with extract. On average my extract beers cost me $30 to brew.

As for all grain being cheaper, it only is if you buy your grain in bulk. If you buy your grain per batch, you aren't saving anything.

You can buy extract in bulk to save money as well. The problem for me is storing it.
 
Some of the prices mentioned seem really high for an extract kit. There are some really good suppliers online that ship free if you spend over a certain amount and have many kits to choose from in the 30 dollar range. I have ordered form morebeer.com a few times and have been very happy with their service, and I am sure there are many others out there. You have to wait a few days for the goodies to come , but it works out quite well!
 
alexdagrate said:
2.5) Just use dry yeast, it's cheap. Unless you're brewing an incredibly complex and yeast-centric beer, you can usually substitute Safale US05 (Pale Ales, IPAs, American Barleywines), S04 (english style ales, stouts), or Safbrew (belgians). Dry yeast is cheaper than vials or packets and you don't need to mess with a starter.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about T-58? How is that yeast? I've never used it.
 
First I do all grain.
I buy hops in semi-bulk from Farmhouse Brewing Supply about once per year. I buy the larger sizes of the brewing chemicals I need because it is cheaper per use. You have to account for those costs if you want to really get a handle on the cost of brewing.

So when I order a recipe online, I just get the crushed malt bill and sometimes yeast. In april I got a 1.070 IPA grain bill with a WLP yeast for under 20 bucks. Because shipping cost is a constant, I buy at least two recipes every time I order. The other was an american brown malt bill with dry yeast for under 16. With shipping it would be ~$23 and ~$19 respectively ($7 shipping split for the two malt bills).

If you piece it out and figure in about a $1.00 per ounce for hops, $1 for WLP yeast nutrient capsule, $0.10 for finings, $0.25 for pH control in the mash, $0.35 for starsan, $1.50 for the starter and priming solution, and $1.00 for caps. Lets say this adds between 6 and 10 bucks per recipe depending on the amount of hops used.

Thats still 2 cases (5 gallons) of beer for ~30 for the big IPA and ~25 for an american brown. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

I dont consider the cost of equipment in these calculations because I yard-saled and craiglisted almost all my stuff. My water cooler mash tun, 10 gallon SS kettle, and 7 gallon pot and turkey fryer set up cost under 60 bucks and took 15 months to accumulate. Temp control for the free mini-fridge was around 40 bucks installed.

I never tell people that it is cheaper to brew rather than buy what you like. I agree that on a per recipe basis, the ingredients needed to brew a beer you might like will be cheaper than buying bottles from the store.
 
If your goal is to make beer cheaper than you can buy it, then it can be done very easily. The equipment will pay for itself after the third batch if you are thrifty. If I drank corona, then I would still be saving money. I prefer to buy good beer though, so I'll be saving a crapload of money once I have several different beers on hand. You can make 5 gallons of a 7 or 8%ABV beer for $30. You can't buy beer that cheap!

But as others have said, it will not end up being cheaper unless you keep the cheap PITA equipment. Once you get into the hobby, you will want more and more until there are no savings.
 
Saving money is all relative. Being that drinking beer is not necessarily a necessity, all of it could technically be saved, whether you buy it from the store or make it yourself.

This arguement happened often with my other hobby, motorcycling. The initial cost of equipment, and getting started make it seem like you can't save money and some guys would argue you wouldnt. Well let me tell you, I've done the math and my bike has more than paid itself off including equipment, tires, insurance, etc when you figure the gas it would have cost to drive my truck over the past 3 years.

You can look at brewing much the same. It may cost a bit up front (equipment, extract, yeast) but once you go AG, slant yeast, grow hops, etc it will definitely pay itself off over time. If you think about it some of the six packs we buy at the store cost over 10 bucks. Even at the worst case scenario youve given $70 that should make about 50-60 beers. That would cost you about 100 bucks at the store if you bought it retail. So you are already breaking even at worst. However, one could also argue the time you put into it you could out weigh the dollars you save. After all, what price would you put on your lifetime? The argument could go on and on.

Personally, I try not to think about the savings/cost and just enjoy it for what it is. Fun times and great brews I can call my own.
 
I don't know where you guys get extract but its like 5 bucks a pound most places I have seen. My lhbs has basic kits for like 50 bucks. Yeah you can get them online for 30 but you can't forget about the shipping!

I just switched to grain because ultimately I want to make big beer. Try pricing out an imperial IPA in DME. Forget about it.
 
Well 5 bucks is dry. Liquid is a little cheaper but my store doesn't get the bulk and divide it up like some do except for the canadian stuff that is reasonable but screw it I want to make big boy all grain beer.
 
i save a ton of money homebrewing, and i do liquid extracts and liquid yeasts. i think the most i've paid for a homebrew is $2 a bottle (12oz), and that was a Delirium Tremens clone. Still way, way cheaper than what i'd pay for something that i can almost gaurantee would be substandard from World Market (I've never had a good "big beer" import from there, and until very recently they were the only game in town). i'm usually around $0.80 a bottle, and i plan on starting to re-use my yeast here very soon, which will save me an additional $3 a batch.

Not sure what the rules are here, but the folk over at AHS have taken good care of me
 

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