Don’t forget how easy it is to grow your own hops.
I’ve grown Saaz, Willamette and Cascade hops. More for entertainment than savings.
hehe.. yeah, I grow my own hops too.. problem is, after paying the neighborhood teen to harvest them(cause it sucks) I and up paying ~$40 for ~4-5lbs of cascade(3lb), saaz,, and some wilammette, and sorachi.. the "savings" mean me itchy for 3 days. and storing 4+ lbs of dried whole cone hops.. vs. buying the same in pellets, with half the freezer space.
The solution is a once a year "wet-hop" batch, where I do all the harvesting.. and Thank you, No.
on the malted Barley front, I used to buy from a local brewery all base grain at ~$1/lb, a club member then had a wholesale agreement with Muntons which was sweet as wholesale their barley was ~$.65/lb or less.. Muntons closed local distributorship, and I was still able to buy local malted grain(again all base malts) for ~$1.00-1.05/lb but they have a 500lb minimum, so still made for a group buy or buying base once per year..
On the yeast front.. those M/Fers are for nothing but reproduction.. Harvest away, keep your eyes on Milk the Funk(MILF), and any other propagation theories you can find.. (bootleg biology, many threads on this forum)
Attributing the hourly cost per brew as a hobby is easy, as long as you don't have the "dream" of opening a brewery... still at (MA) min wage, $15.00/hr for a 5-6 hr brew day(for a 10G/42L) still adds to the price per pint.
And let us forget the "sunk" cost of our equipment.. I get that amortized when you follow the spike "your liver will fail before our equipment" is insignificant, but drop a few G's in stainless equipment, and it's hard to not have it affect the $/pint.
I guess I've rambled a bit, and will now head on my way, but don't forget for all those economy brew, At home, use what you can, build what you can , and reluctantly buy the rest..
P.S.
No clue what my last brew cost.. I used to keep track ( keggle system electric,, house built including running all my own lines/breakers, Cheap-ass MF(literally just had a 4th child) here), but after a while, I know that I'm well below commercial costs, but only because I don't pay labor and packaging (and losses) cost.
There is a homebrew/commercial side here that if you think of it in a rational sense, does not play out.. The math does not add up until you hit like 15 barrels... There were a few ~2 barrel operations that opened and failed in my area recently. The math is still tough unless you ignore human labor and "sunk" equipment costs, so why try?
That being said..
Avid homebrewer, avid hobbyist, and "If I die, please don't let my wife sell my homebrew equipment for what I told her it cost" kind of guy,
Kevin
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