Yes researching and learning plays a big part in all my hobbies... but I can be a bit obsessive at times haha!
And yes... I want beer. I don't know if its just me... but going out for a beer can be a pain in azz. Waiting on poor service... and it's not cheap... CA expensive. I figured once I am set up and learned on a particular method using all grain... my costs will be lower and much more satisfying drinking my own brew.
Yeah, just keep telling yourself that. This statement: "
Yes researching and learning plays a big part in all my hobbies... but I can be a bit obsessive at times haha!" belies that sentiment.
Now, if you ignore capital costs, your cost-per-beer *will* be lower. I'm at less than 50 cents per beer in basic costs even if I include PBW cleaner, the electricity consumed, the water consumed in chilling, etc.
But if I have to amortize the cost of equipment...I figure I'll break even in the year 2037.
********
Your source of ingredients is everything when it comes to costs. I'm fortunate in that RiteBrew is in Wisconsin, where I live, and I buy grain in 50# or 55# sacks. That brings the per-pound cost down to $1.02/pound for Maris Otter (my favorite base grain), 74 cents/pound for 2-row, and 95 cents/pound for Munich. Hops are generally under $2/ounce and sometimes much less. Yeast typically is about $7 for liquid, around $3-4 for dry yeast.
So nominal ingredient costs are....for a 5-gallon batch with 12# of 2-row, dry yeast, 3 ounces hops.....maybe $19? Divide that by 48 beers and it's well under 50 cents.
But you'll also buy stuff like PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash), Star San (sanitizer), water adjuncts and additions, Fermcap-S, and a few other things, so that'll add to the costs.
I store my grain in 5-gallon buckets, so there was that cost too.
*********
I'm at a time in my life--early retirement, empty-nester--where money for brewing is not so hard to come by. But 15 years ago? Different story. Kids still in school, and devoting the capital I have to brewing back then would have been, as they say, contraindicated. So I would have stayed with a much more modest system.
But saving money was never my main reason for doing this. I love complicated hobbies, lots of learning, lots of options, lots of control over outcomes. It keeps me alive! And there's a feeling of accomplishment and self-satisfaction in having mastered, or nearly so, a very complicated and interesting subject.
BTW, just started taking flight lessons in May. Talk about a rabbit hole!