How can I save money on brew day?

[thaymond]

Many excellent points made so far. I will echo many of them.

1. Test your water. RO was one of my $10 per batch expenses. Once my water was tested, I found that my tap water isn't bad for brewing. I just treat with camden to remove chloramines. It was 3 buck for 100 tabs at my lhbs. 1 tab treats 5 gallons. That's a no brainer.

2. Grow your own hops. I love IPAS and the cost of commercial hops is cost prohibitive when brewing IPA all the time. I bought and grew 4 plants, all yielding about a pound. About $180 in initial materials (trellis, oast for drying), and time spent harvesting. I have not had to buy hops in nearly 2 years. I've made probably about 120 gallons of beer with the hops I grow, and still have several pounds left over. My trade off is I guess on my AA and IBUs. Oh well. Plus I sell rhizomes to recoup my initial cost. I have made my money back I put into the initial plants. This was a great money saving move.

3. Bulk grain buys. I bought 50 lbs for $60 at my lhbs. I've made 20 gallons with it so far, and still have 16 lbs left.l, enough for a couple summer blondes. My lhbs also has discounted mix matched grains. I can usually dig through and find what I need for cheap.

4. Reuse yeast. Find what you like, and keep jars of it. I have about a gallon of us05. I'll use a jar, and not feel bad if I end up not saving the yeast after I rack. I still have much more to use. If it gets old, I'll use starters.

5. Save a little jar of unhopped boiled wort from a batch of beer in a mason jar and dilute with water until 1.020. Starter wort on the cheap.

I'm still working on finding a cheaper way for propane fills/exchange. I can get 18 dollars per refill on my tank.

So, at 1.20 per lb, a typical 5 gallon IPA would cost me:

Grain - $17.60/13 lbs base malt and 1 lb of vienna/munich @ $2 per lb
Hops - $0 (already recouped initial cost) using 8-12 oz of homegrown for boil and dryhop.
Yeast - $1 (3rd or 4th generation uso5)
Water - $0.40 (whatever water costs out of my water bill...)
Propane - $6 per batch

Other incidentals, like gypsum, cacl, whirlflock, misc tubing, co2 for kegs, etc. Let's call it $3 a batch, but it's not.

Total would run $28 per 5 gallons, or just over $5.50 per gallon.

Compare to lhbs store bought equivalent

Grain - $25.75/13 lbs base malt and 1 lb of vienna/munich @ $1.75 per lb base malt and $2 lb specialty.
Hops - $10 for 8-12 oz, conservatively
Yeast - $3 us05
Water - $0.40 (whatever water costs out of my water bill...)
Propane - $6 per batch

Other incidentals, like gypsum, cacl, whirlflock, misc tubing, co2 for kegs, etc. Let's call it $3 a batch, but it's not.

That's $48.15 for 5 gallons of the same beer, @ just under $10 per gallon.

Of couse none of this includes initial equipment costs or time spent. Your results may vary.

 

[imasickboy]

Save on propane by getting your fills at Costco or BJ's. I can't say for certain that Costco will fill for non-members, but I know BJ's does. The member price at my local BJ's is $9. The non-member price is $12. It's cheaper than anywhere else around here.

 

[55x11]

If you live in a rural community, you may have friends who have good well water.

My wife occasionally buys bulk wheett for bread, going to try home malting.

I have kept liquid yeast strains alive, but eventually just went to dry yeists. That said, dry yeast is not as cheap as it used to be.

Once upon a time I was trying to break under $2/gallon. Last 2 batches (I have not brewed for forever), were closer to $10. From the LBS ( "local" about 100 miles away) all grain kits are not much cheaper than extract.

$10 per batch or per 1 Gallon?

$2 per gallon is crazy!!
Maybe for some low ABV, 3-4% beer without much hops, then I can see it.
Grain is about $1 per lb, maybe 0.80$ per lb if buying in bulk. With hops it is easy to get to $1 per oz if buying in bulk, but for specific hops perhaps even as low as $0.50 per oz.
There may be some light beer recipes - like american lager maybe? - that (for 5 Gallon batch) require only maybe 8-9 lbs of grain - assuming very good mashing efficiency, and maybe an ounce or even slightly less of hops.

With bulk purchasing this could be about $7 in grain bill and less than $1 in hops. Yeast can be reused and get well below $1 per batch. If not using RO water, just tap water, and cheap propane, you can probably get under $10 for 5 Gallon batch.

For more "regular" beers it may be more difficult. For IPAs the hop bill is a problem (I guess growing your own hops can reduce the cost to zero, depending on how you look at it). For stronger ABV beers, I usually expect 13-15 lbs of grain, including specialty grains. My LHBS charges only 99 cent per 1 lb of US 2-row, which I never realized is pretty low and close to what one could get from bulk purchases. Still, with specialty grains the grains typically end up costing $15, up to $20 per batch. I use $1 per oz of hops from my bulk purchases (some less popular hop specialties cost me less, but I do need Amarillo's, Centennials, Cascades, Chinooks, Styrian Goldings, etc. - so average is about $1 per oz). So for standard recipe that may call for 2-4 oz of hops, thats another $2-4. My water is pretty good already but I do purchase RO water to cut it in half on occasion - I fill Glacier water for 25 cents a gallon, so thats about $1.25 per batch (need 5G of RO water plus ~5G of regular tap water for 5G batch). Propane cost is where I could reduce it a bit. I am guess it cost me $3 or so per batch with my burner. But depends on how long the boil is.

So typical cost per average batch is probably $25 per 5G batch, or $5 per gallon. Then there is starsan, electric bill (fermentation chamber and keeper), water bill, CO2 tank refill, yeast nutrients, whirlflock, gelatin, DME for starters, termcap, gypsum etc. Real cost is probably at least $30-35 per batch, and that doesn't include equipment amortization rate for fermenters, kegs, keepers etc. - which get cheaper the more you brew of course, since those are not recurring costs.

I estimate that I spent about $2,000 on equipment, but I also brewed about 200 Gallons of beer over the past year, so that's $10 per gallon. At the more rapid rate I brew now (and using 10G batches), and assuming I don't need much equipment anymore (ha!) except for minor replacement of worn out or broken stuff - it could be down to $5 per gallon in equipment cost by the end of the year. Still, its a hidden cost that we all forget. And then there is your own time!

Having said that, it's a hobby, and relatively inexpensive at that! AND you get fantastic beer out of it.

 

[Firewalker11]

Lets see, I made a 5 gallon stout this winter, grain was $0.64 an ounce or $5.76 for #9. #2 of specialty grains @ $1.55 a pound or $3.10. 2 oz of Fuggles @ $0.87 an ounce or $1.74. Safale S-05 for $1.99. Water was less than a nickle.

$5.76
$1.55
$3.10
$1.74
$1.99
Tax, $1.12
=$15.26

That's about as low as I can go.