Nostagar
Member
As I hate paying more than I have to for things, as I'm sure most of us do, I realized that "The Local Brew Store" has a significant markup on, well, everything really. I'm fine with that for some things, as I can't get them elsewhere (Yeast, grains, etc).
However, there are things I can get elsewhere, and I've decided to share some of my findings.
Rubbermaid 5 gallon water cooler: Home Depot. $22 (I'm sure this one is no surprise to anyone) I usually see these going double from most brew shops.
Rubbermaid 10 gallon water cooler is $45 at home depot. I use one as a jockey box/wort chiller.
50' x 1/4" copper tubing: Lowes has it for $23 which is only a few dollars cheaper than home depot. I siphon my wort from the boil kettle through a coil of this stuff that stays submerged in the 10-gallon cooler, and then into the primary fermenter. it looks like a standard copper coil wort chiller that gets dunked in your wort, but I go the other way, dunk the coil into the ice bath and get cold wort out the other end. Hot to Cold goes much quicker.
The one I think might aggravate anyone who owns a home brew shop is the stainless steel bulkhead/valve/hose barb: $26 www.bargainfittings.com
I've seen them going for 3 times that at many brew shops. If you go to bargain fittings, look for their keg weld-less bulkhead kit. you can choose steel or brass (just don't forget to leech the lead from your brass before brewing with it).
For the Boil Pot & Burner, I have yet to find anything less expensive than the Brinkmann 815-4001-S Turkey Fryer that can be found on Amazon.com for $60. It's got a 30-quart stock pot and a 45,000 BTU burner. They are also available at home depot for the same price.
As for fermentation, I like the Amazon.com 5-gallon reusable water bottles for $16. from PCS, and hey, it's got a handle built in. Shipping on them is a lot, so I do shop these locally, and occasionally find them for about $20 at the water shops.
Airlocks and carboy caps I do get from my local brew shop. They are so inexpensive, it's not worth the S&H to get them online, unless you have to.
LabDepotInc.com has some good prices for hot plate stirrers and just regular stirrers.
For Erlenmeyer flasks and Florence Flasks (I use these for bottling still wines like mead, looks really cool!), I go to hometrainingtools.com. They have up to 2000ml Erlenmeyer flasks, so if you use bigger than that, you'll have to go elsewhere. Then again, if I need bigger than that, I'm usually using a gallon growler. For Half Gallon Growlers, go to webstaurantstore.com. they have one that you can get printed with whatever you want for $4 ea. (if you do get them printed, you've gotta buy a lot of them though) At the gallon size, a few of the online brew shops have them for $4-ish each already, and that does seem to be the going price currently.
If you know of something less expensive, please, feel free to share!
Cheers,
