I don't see any pricing for extracts in your post. I cannot imagine that you actually pay the same or less for extracts than you do for grain, regardless of whether you buy it bulk or not.
Glad to know I'm not the only one confused by that.....
Some things I don't factor into the equation;
1)
My time, this is one of my
hobbies it's fun for me.
2) My gear...it's been paid for in cases of beer a long time ago. Plus in the pleasure it has given myself and my friends, and family.
For example
My mom is 85, before I started brewing my nephew who is only 5 years younger than me started brewing and more significantly wine making....
right around the time my dad died. He is quite talented at winemaking and quickly rose to the position of vitner of one of the biggest homebrew/winemaking clubs in the area...that club has twice a year a tastings...in the spring it is wine, and in the fall, beer...and it has been my family's sincere pleasure to take her to the tastings, where she proceeds to get nice and "toasty" (and to slap my arm when talking to me if I am sitting next to her.)
Besides that, since he brings wins and I bring beers to family holidays it has made them more palatable...
See my brother who was 16 years older than me died 13 years ago on Christmas eve, and my dad, her husband, died 3 years ago this New Years, holidays have been nevertheless difficult. But since every family gathering ends up being an orgy of great food, and beer and wine tastings from my Nephew and I, difficult times have been eased, and actually fun for her....and the rest of us as well. We actually laugh on Christmas...and I for one didn't laugh on Christmas for nearly a decade.
That alone
more than pays for the approximate $300-500 that I put into gear.
Like the American Express commercial, some things are
priceless.
3) Things like starsan and oxyclean, especially santizer, because I use so little of it by only mixing a gallon or two at a time, reusing it the next day or using it in a spray bottle of RO water, that it comes out to cents per usage. A 20 dollar bottle of starsan will last me over a year.
But on a purely practical level, this is how I calculate the savings in my brewing, even with brewing extract;
I like beer, I like good beer,
good beer tends to be expensive, or at least more expensive than a sixer of Bud Light. The commercial beers I tend to like (and brew similar to, including some clones) and that I still buy on occasion cost me between $10 and 17$
a six pack.
I'll use a typical 6 of Bell's Amber Ale for example.
1 6 pack of Bell's is around 12 dollars with tax and bottle deposit.
two cases (48 beers) of Bells would cost me
$106.00
To brew 2 cases of my old Extract w/ grains clone recipe, including dry yeast (though I would usually use bottle harvested Bell's yeast) and hops would cost me about $50.00
To brew it as All Grain would cost me about 25-30 dollars.
Even brewing with extract I would be saving $56 dollars to get the same amount of beer that tastes exactly the same.
I could roll that $56 dollar savings into another two cases of beer...
Like I said, to me my gear has been paid for in spades, most of the hops and yeast I have already paid for long before I actually brew (and I know a place I can get pre-hop shortage pricing on ounce of hops),
and I enjoy every monkey loving minute of this brewing thing, so I still come out ahead....
But the
intrinsic enjoyment that I get as part of the brewing culture, including this place, way outweighs any money I sink into it. And I also, as I mentioned in the first post try to cut corners on occasion...
