I thought All Grain was cheaper??!!

[petep1980]

The ingredients in all grain is cheaper, but you need to get to 15-20 batches to pay for the equipment.

I just spent nearly $150 rigging up my new 10-gallon mash tun. I could have easily spent more if I went with a false bottom. You need an extra pot for either sparge water or collecting wort, so another $50. You'll be doing bigger boils, so you need a cooling coil which will run around $50. You'll also need a turkey fryer which will run around $50. You could do CL, eBay, or do a lot of DIY, but than you're really friggin running around.

However, you get INCREDIBLE beer. Which is worth it.

 

[Synovia]

The ingredients in all grain is cheaper, but you need to get to 15-20 batches to pay for the equipment.

I just spent nearly $150 rigging up my new 10-gallon mash tun. I could have easily spent more if I went with a false bottom. You need an extra pot for either sparge water or collecting wort, so another $50. You'll be doing bigger boils, so you need a cooling coil which will run around $50. You'll also need a turkey fryer which will run around $50. You could do CL, eBay, or do a lot of DIY, but than you're really friggin running around.

However, you get INCREDIBLE beer. Which is worth it.

I needed most of those things for extract (turkey frier, chiller, etc).


And my 5g mash tun cost me about $30. Thats about 3 batches to pay back.

 

[petep1980]

I needed most of those things for extract (turkey frier, chiller, etc).


And my 5g mash tun cost me about $30. Thats about 3 batches to pay back.

Let me know how many batches you get out of the 5g mash tun. Are you going to just hold the button to drain the wort while it passes over your thumb @ 150°F?

I got 2 batches out of mine.

 

[BierMuncher]

I won't name names (since the OP already did), but your supplier is overpriced. I received a catalog from them this week and they want $3.00 for one ounce of Hops???

I had to check the date on the front to make sure it wasn't from Fall-2008.

Nope! It was current.

HELLO...THE HOPS SHORTAGE IS LONG OVER.

BTW, if you're not going to order bulk..Midwestsupplies FTW.

 

[JayInJersey]

I've bought kits from them before...and they are good recipes for the most part.
However all of my better beers have been from recipes I've gotten off this site.
The only one I still use from NB is their non-lager oktoberfest as I don't have the equipment to lager at this time.


But even still, I get the recipe from the NB site and log on to a certain BrewBuilder and buy from there.


I still get my Fruit Puree's from NB though...I prefer them to extracts.

 

[smitty2324]

If you don't want to buy in bulk, which means you'll need a grain crusher, then try rebel brewer. Their prices for base malts are absurd, and they will crush them for you. I order base malts from them, hops from hopsdirect, and go to LhBS for any specialty malts and yeast that I might need.

 

[masonsjax]

The most expensive part of my AG setup was the turkey fryer at about $50. My 48qt mash tun and my chiller were about $30 in parts each. My 10 gal and two 5 gallon aluminum pots were about $40 all together. AG doesn't have to cost a fortune to get into. I'm sure someone could pick apart the shortcomings of some of my equipment, but I get excellent beer every time. I'm still fairly new to brewing, so I'm sure I'll upgrade stuff over the years.

 

[motobrewer]

HELLO...THE HOPS SHORTAGE IS LONG OVER.

tell that to commercial distributors.

dead guy is $11/6. i can't find much really that's under $8/6.

n-b's hop prices are a bit ridiculous, imo. i understand packaging/cooling/shipping costs, but come on....$3 an ounce??

 

[Synovia]

Let me know how many batches you get out of the 5g mash tun. Are you going to just hold the button to drain the wort while it passes over your thumb @ 150°F?

I got 2 batches out of mine.

Umm, no, mine has a brass ball valve. The cooler was 12.99.(home depot 5g igloo)

I've done maybe 15 batches in it.

 

[hal2814]

Let me know how many batches you get out of the 5g mash tun. Are you going to just hold the button to drain the wort while it passes over your thumb @ 150°F?

I got 2 batches out of mine.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. I use an unmodified 5 gallon Igloo cooler, a paint strainer bag, and a colander for an MLT. Grain is mashed in a bag in the cooler. When the mash is over, I lift the bag out and set it on the colander that's sitting over the cooler. When I collect all the runnings, I pour them into my ale pail and sparge. 18 batches in and so far, so good. I can comfortably hold 12 lbs of grain in this setup. Since I already had the cooler and the colander, my total cost for moving to all-grain was $3. And once again, this isn't meant to be a urinating contest. It's just an example of going to an all-grain setup without spending a lot of money.

 

[McGarnigle]

I finally got everything together to start brewing AG and did my first batch last week. It went pretty smooth and I think things are going well thus far. So I decided I was going to start looking at what my next few beers would be and began browsing Norther Brewer's site. Then I started noticing that the prices for AG kits seemed higher than I thought they should be.

I started comparing and in many cases the extract kits were the same price as the AG kits!!! and in a few cases the AG were more expensive!:

Notwithstanding everyhting else mentioned in this thread, NB's all grain kits all appear to be cheaper than their extract.

 

[Lynux]

Notwithstanding everyhting else mentioned in this thread, NB's all grain kits all appear to be cheaper than their extract.

Funny, I noticed the exact same thing when I went to their website and it took 4 pages of comments before someone even checked...lol.

I am a patron of NB and their products are excellent. They may not be the cheapest on everything but their kits are solid.

I buy grain and hops in bulk these days but their kit recipes are a great source of info for brewing new styles.

I've never seen one of their extract kits cheaper than the AG kits and i'm on their site/forum everyday. Go figure.

 

[Briansierra]

Notwithstanding everyhting else mentioned in this thread, NB's all grain kits all appear to be cheaper than their extract.

Same here. I used to do extract, then went to all grain kits at Northern Brewer, without double checking their site, I believe I was paying about $22 for Amercan Amber Ale all grain vs, $28 or so both using dry yeast. Additionally, the shipping was flat rate $7 for all grain or extract (I might buy 2 or 3 kits at once to save on this). Now I have a mill, buy 50# sacks at More Beer for $33 (bit of a drive to Concord, CA), a freezer full of hops from hops direct, and recycle yeast. All savings ideas came from this site. I think I'm at maybe $12 to $15 per 5 gallon batch. Thx everyone.

 

[FishinDave07]

AHS, as mentioned, have cheaper kits. If you have your own recipe or search the database i'd say try Brewmasters warehouse.

 

[swimdmb27]

+1 on the brewmasters warehouse. Went there for the first time yesterday and man that place was awesome! One of the orders wasn't ready yet but Ed went ahead and got it ready anyway. Very cool and knowledgeable as well. His prices are some of the cheapest I have seen as well. I live in kennesaw/marietta so I can do the in-store pick-up but still $6 flat shipping isn't bad.

 

[SeanT]

Umm, no, mine has a brass ball valve. The cooler was 12.99.(home depot 5g igloo)

I've done maybe 15 batches in it.

12.99 at home depot? was this an online deal or in store? i'm making the move to all grain and have been looking for a cheap cooler.

 

[joety]

BTW, if you're not going to order bulk..Midwestsupplies FTW.

Totally agree. Just placed an order covering my next three batches from them even though I practically pass their competitor's new location on my way home.

 

[hal2814]

12.99 at home depot? was this an online deal or in store? i'm making the move to all grain and have been looking for a cheap cooler.

A few weeks ago, the Sam's Club near me had the 5 gallon Igloos for $8.88.

 

[Synovia]

12.99 at home depot? was this an online deal or in store? i'm making the move to all grain and have been looking for a cheap cooler.

Might have been Menards, but it was definitely 12.99 in store. Was towards the end of the summer. Its the typical 5g round "Gatorade type" cooler.

 

[DavidSteel]

You can only get good deals in the summer. Otherwise, ask around for an old cooler someone doesn't use and ask for it (or ask to buy it for cheap). This is what I did and I got THE cooler I was looking for for free. Built it for less than 15 dollars total. Sauce:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/just-built-my-mash-tun-pics-151618/

 

[BA_from_GA]

from my experience, like any other hobby/obsession, brewing can be as involved and expensive or as simple and cheap as the brewer wants it to be. I for one, love gadgets and having "gear" for the hobbies i enjoy; however, one of those hobbies is making stuff as cheaply as possible.

I found a friend throwing out a 12 gallon cooler because the drain plug had broken off, so i used it as my MLT. found a scrap 60 foot copper coil at work, turned it into a 50 ft IC. Scrap steel rollers and some folded sheet metal became my grain mill, Turkey fryer(s) off Craigslist, and one entire setup a guy was selling for $200 provided me with an extra MLT, keggle, IC, turkey fryer, 4 carboys, 4 HDPE primaries, and a big rubbermaid box of goodies... from which i assembled 1 starter kit and sold for $250 on craigslist, then sold a nother carbo and the extra IC to a buddy for some cash. All in all the most expensive thing was the hardware for my 12 gal MLT which ran me $32 bucks. (more than free after selling the random equip from my bulk gear buy)

Now i've purchased about 275lbs of grain for $200, and will be putting 2 more lbs of hops in the freezer w/ the 4 already there.

I'd say all grain has made brewing cheaper for me.... it just took me 6 months of waiting for the prices/deals/etc. to get to this point. Sure i could have gone out and purchased all the stuff from a retailer, but that wasn't the way that was most exciting/enjoyable to me. And, at this point, it was worth not brewing for a few months, because i'll be set to brew for the entire next year on less that 1/3 of what i spent brewing extract last year... and i'll make about twice as much beer.

 

[Cliff897]

Why are you buying kits?

Spend some time looking at recipes. It'll take you maybe two hours to pretty much be able to spoec out your own brew.

Want a nice IPA
8 # Marris Otter
1 # 2 Row
0.5# Cara foam
0.5# Cara red
Toss half pounds of wheat and oats

Pick your hops per your preferences and play with adding them at different times during the boil. there aren't many rules. So have fun playing.

Centennial, Cascade, and Northern Brewer work well together

So do
Amarillo, Cascade, and Styrian Golding,


So do
East Kent Goldings, Sazz, and Styrian Goldings


Sterling and Sazz are a great combination too.

I'm not real big on cat pee bittering hops that seem to be popular in the Left Coast around SF but hey if pine and cat pee sound appealing, there hops for that too.

When you add hops when you Muck the Glimm or in the secondary ferment try to keep the acid below 6%

 

[cmorgan]

Thanks for all the great response on this!(My crappy internet has been out because of recent weather.... I have satelite...bla) I have started to look into some of the distributors you all have posted and it looks like there really are some great deals out there if you just keep your eyes open... so thanks for some of the leads. In the past few days I have managed to find about 5 other AG brewers in my area who might be willing to go in on a bulk order of base grains which is awesome! I just wish there was a good shop in Northern, VA.

I apologize about calling out NB by name... I was in a bad mood at the time due to discovering the prices. I contacted them and they admited to some of the prices not making sense and where looking into correcting that. I could give a few examples of the kits I found where the crushed AG WAS actually more expensive than the extract, but I don't think that's necessary. NB admitted that there seemed to be a mistake in some of their listed prices which is cool... and besides its become pretty clear that if I really want to save money I need to buy in bulk and not use kits anyway.

I also spent over a year keeping a lookout for stuff I could use for getting into AG and it finally paid off when I found a turkey fryer(burner, 7gallon pot, and propane tank) for $15!!! on craigslist! Then I built a mashtun from an old cooler following a similar setup to this http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/mashtun.htm I am too cheap to get a valve, so I just duck taped the tubing to the side of the cooler during the mash. It worked perfectly fine.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[VABeerSnob]

Hey! Check the All-Grain forums -- there is a bulk buy sponsored by a guy in Charlottesville. I'm thinking about giving it a shot. How does this sound: 55 pounds of German 2-row Pilsener for $33.39? I tried sending you a private message about this, but your message folder is at capacity.

 

[trailblazer]

i can do an entire beer (og-1.05) with us-05 and a little bit of hops for about 20$ for 5 gallons. if i bought in bulk it proly be about 12$.

 

[jpoder]

The sign of any good hobby is that is should be all consuming of both time and money (or at least capable of being all consuming).

that being said, I just spent >$50 on ingredients for a belgian quad from my LHBS! >$2.50 / oz of hops, >$2 / Lb for crushed grains ~$7 for liquid yeast and >$3/lb for DME (my 5gal igloo cooler MLT isn't big enough for doing all grain for big beers like a quad!)! I need to start ordering bulk!!! (and buy/build a larger MLT) i found hopsdirect.com the other day, and could have almost bought a pound of Saaz pellets for what I just paid for 3 oz (D'oh!). I'm not ready to drop the cash for a grain mill given I am only able to brew a handful of batches per year, but looks like i can economize in other places!

 

[DNW]

north country malt
hopsdirect.com
wash your yeast
ag for $9-15

 

[The Pol]

north country malt
hopsdirect.com
wash your yeast
ag for $9-15

Exactly...

 

[masonsjax]

Also, I've been running off a little extra wort when sparging that I freeze in tupperware containers. Then when I need to make a starter, I have wort ready to boil. That saves me from buying (and making a mess with) DME.

 

[DNW]

Also, I've been running off a little extra wort when sparging that I freeze in tupperware containers. Then when I need to make a starter, I have wort ready to boil. That saves me from buying (and making a mess with) DME.

Thanks for the reminder - I need to start doing this!