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I've been doing some calculating on the cost of brewing vs buying. Cream ale is what I typically drink the most of. I drink plenty of brown/stout/hefe/wheat too, but cream ale is sort of the go to brew, and what I plan to use as a base for making a light beer swmbo will drink. I used BM's Cream of Three Crops recipe to base my ingredient cost on as that's the recipe I will be using after I make a bulk grain purchase this week.
Like I said, I've been wanting to brew something swmbo will drink. She's a MGD 64 drinker and hasn't drank more than a sip of anything I've brewed. There's no converting her to real beer, so I thought I'd try brewing something really light by reducing a cream ale recipe. I haven't done this yet, but I screwed up a batch of hefe on my 2nd all grain attempt, coming in at 1.031 og rather than the expected 1.050. FG was 1.008, so 3.1% abv. I almost dumped it, since it tasted like water to me. But before I did, I had her try it, and for once she said she liked it.
We like to buy in bulk to save on trips to the store, so we will often pick up 5 30pks of MGD 64 for her at a time, which is roughly $100 for 150 beers. So here's my calculations based on spending $100.
BM's Cream of Three Crops will currently cost me $21.52 which makes 11.5g or 115 beers. MGD 64 is 2.8% abv, which is 60% of the 4.7% cream ale, so if I cut back the ingredients to 60%, the cost for 11.5g goes down to $12.91. For the same $100 I could make 7.75 batches x 115 beers per batch = 890 beers.
This is with reusing yeast. Even if I have to use fresh yeast every now and then, I typically use notty at $1.10/pack, so with washing/reusing, the cost per batch is negligible. I also plan to grow my own hops next year, so this will lower the cost even more since my calculations were at $1.50/oz or $3.00 per regular batch of BM's cream ale.
Am I miscalculating something, or can I really make 575 regular beers or 890 extra light beers for the cost of buying 150?
Like I said, I've been wanting to brew something swmbo will drink. She's a MGD 64 drinker and hasn't drank more than a sip of anything I've brewed. There's no converting her to real beer, so I thought I'd try brewing something really light by reducing a cream ale recipe. I haven't done this yet, but I screwed up a batch of hefe on my 2nd all grain attempt, coming in at 1.031 og rather than the expected 1.050. FG was 1.008, so 3.1% abv. I almost dumped it, since it tasted like water to me. But before I did, I had her try it, and for once she said she liked it.
We like to buy in bulk to save on trips to the store, so we will often pick up 5 30pks of MGD 64 for her at a time, which is roughly $100 for 150 beers. So here's my calculations based on spending $100.
BM's Cream of Three Crops will currently cost me $21.52 which makes 11.5g or 115 beers. MGD 64 is 2.8% abv, which is 60% of the 4.7% cream ale, so if I cut back the ingredients to 60%, the cost for 11.5g goes down to $12.91. For the same $100 I could make 7.75 batches x 115 beers per batch = 890 beers.
This is with reusing yeast. Even if I have to use fresh yeast every now and then, I typically use notty at $1.10/pack, so with washing/reusing, the cost per batch is negligible. I also plan to grow my own hops next year, so this will lower the cost even more since my calculations were at $1.50/oz or $3.00 per regular batch of BM's cream ale.
Am I miscalculating something, or can I really make 575 regular beers or 890 extra light beers for the cost of buying 150?