First I would like to give you a little background about myself. I have been brewing beer for only about a year now and it's been all extract and mainly kit beers. I recently bought a new kettle and some other equipment so I'm moving to all grain BIAB. I gave up bottling several months ago and moved into kegging. I cannot count how many different batches of beer I've done but it's been a lot.
I've discovered that in this short amount of time that I can save a significant amount of money by making some modifications. I can also make some extremely good beers in the process. A good American style IPA is currently my favorite. The reason that I decided to write this article is to help the beginning brewer save some cash and make a fantastic beer at the same time.
There was a recipe that I came up with around Christmas. I had a little help from some of the homebrewers on HBT, and along with a little research a recipe was born. I had the intention of making a clone of my favorite IPAs; Great Lakes Chillwave. The flavor is great but it comes in at 9.2% so I couldn't drink as many as I wanted to without making the room spin. The following recipe is what I came up with.Batch size 5 gallons
Wyeast Scottish Ale ($7)
8oz Honey Malt ($1.25)
8oz Carapils ($1.25)
Steep 20-30 mins at 150-160
Fermentables:
8oz corn sugar ($1.50)
9 pounds Pilsen Light LME ($18)
Hops:
1.5 oz Nugget 60 ($3)
Irish Moss 15 ($.50)
1oz Cascade 8 ($2)
1oz Mosaic 8 ($2)
1oz Cascade Flame out ($2)
Dry hop after 2.5 weeks with 2 oz Cascade ($4) for 5 days
ABV 6.5%
Total $42.50
After the total calculation I realized that it probably wasn't any less expensive than buying a kit from Midwest or someplace like that. I knew that there had to be a better way.
Finally after about a month this recipe was ready to drink. I poured the first glass and I thought that this beer was amazing. In fact it was so good that I believe it's much better than the original Chillwave. Just over the weekend the Chillwave was on the shelf again so I purchased a 4 pack for $10. It was not nearly as good as the beer I had brewed in my opinion.
Now you may be asking how exactly this saves money. Well there are several ways to do this. With hops coming in at a crazy $2/ounce and up, by purchasing by the pound you can save 50% or more. A pound of Cascade at the LHBS is $16 and I recently bought a pound for $12 on sale. That right there cut the cost by over 50%. If you're like me and like a bold IPA, a pound will not last that long.
You can then freeze your hops and vacuum seal them. Purchase a cheap scale at the LHBS or anyplace that would have them. Weigh out your ounces and save for later. Pellet hops will last a year or more in the freezer. They'll last even longer if they're vacuum sealed. Oxygen is what can dilute the quality of the hops. With the pellets being compressed and if their vacuum sealed on top of that they can last more than 2 years.
Another option is the yeast. I was reading an article from Brulosophy about harvesting yeast from starters. This is something that is very easy to do. Let's say that you want a 1 liter starter. Just make a 1.5 liter starter and fill up a sanitized pint mason jar and throw it in the fridge for next time. Each time that you do this the yeast gets cheaper. The only thing that will cost you is the DME. One could also harvest the yeast from a previous brew. I haven't tackled that because the starter thing works great for me.
As far as LME or DME goes, it seems like it's not very easy to locate a 'cheap' price on that stuff. I am fortunate that at one of the LHBS they sell bulk Pilsen Light LME for $2/pound. I just tell them how much I want and they put it in a sealed plastic bag. You could shop around and possibly buy bulk. I did find a 50 pound bag of DME from GW Kent for around $130 shipped. That's the best price I could find. Perhaps with a little more research or a group buy you can do better.
Now let's go back to the original recipe. Some may not think that 6.5 ounces is enough hops for an IPA. I disagree but to each their own. I recently heard of a 5 gallon recipe that included over 1 pound of hops. I'm sure that's delicious but I assure 6.5 ounces makes a delicious IPA as well.
I modified that original recipe recently where I swapped out the Cascade for Simcoe and the Mosaic for US Golding. I also added a 15 minute addition and 2 more ounces for the dry hop. There was also an additional pound of LME and 8 ounces of corn sugar. This is what I'm currently drinking and it's very good but different than the original.You could easily swap out the steeping grains for something different such as Crystal or just about anything.
You could make it a pound of each or add another flavor. There could be dark or amber LME in place of the Pilsen Light. Use a different strain of yeast or some dry yeast. Get a variety of hops like myself and exBEERiment! It would be very difficult to ruin a beer like this or even get one that you couldn't drink. I bought a pound of Lemon Drop hops recently. With a name like that it can't be bad, right?
Happy brewing!
I've discovered that in this short amount of time that I can save a significant amount of money by making some modifications. I can also make some extremely good beers in the process. A good American style IPA is currently my favorite. The reason that I decided to write this article is to help the beginning brewer save some cash and make a fantastic beer at the same time.
There was a recipe that I came up with around Christmas. I had a little help from some of the homebrewers on HBT, and along with a little research a recipe was born. I had the intention of making a clone of my favorite IPAs; Great Lakes Chillwave. The flavor is great but it comes in at 9.2% so I couldn't drink as many as I wanted to without making the room spin. The following recipe is what I came up with.Batch size 5 gallons
Wyeast Scottish Ale ($7)
8oz Honey Malt ($1.25)
8oz Carapils ($1.25)
Steep 20-30 mins at 150-160
Fermentables:
8oz corn sugar ($1.50)
9 pounds Pilsen Light LME ($18)
Hops:
1.5 oz Nugget 60 ($3)
Irish Moss 15 ($.50)
1oz Cascade 8 ($2)
1oz Mosaic 8 ($2)
1oz Cascade Flame out ($2)
Dry hop after 2.5 weeks with 2 oz Cascade ($4) for 5 days
ABV 6.5%
Total $42.50
After the total calculation I realized that it probably wasn't any less expensive than buying a kit from Midwest or someplace like that. I knew that there had to be a better way.
Finally after about a month this recipe was ready to drink. I poured the first glass and I thought that this beer was amazing. In fact it was so good that I believe it's much better than the original Chillwave. Just over the weekend the Chillwave was on the shelf again so I purchased a 4 pack for $10. It was not nearly as good as the beer I had brewed in my opinion.
Now you may be asking how exactly this saves money. Well there are several ways to do this. With hops coming in at a crazy $2/ounce and up, by purchasing by the pound you can save 50% or more. A pound of Cascade at the LHBS is $16 and I recently bought a pound for $12 on sale. That right there cut the cost by over 50%. If you're like me and like a bold IPA, a pound will not last that long.
You can then freeze your hops and vacuum seal them. Purchase a cheap scale at the LHBS or anyplace that would have them. Weigh out your ounces and save for later. Pellet hops will last a year or more in the freezer. They'll last even longer if they're vacuum sealed. Oxygen is what can dilute the quality of the hops. With the pellets being compressed and if their vacuum sealed on top of that they can last more than 2 years.
Another option is the yeast. I was reading an article from Brulosophy about harvesting yeast from starters. This is something that is very easy to do. Let's say that you want a 1 liter starter. Just make a 1.5 liter starter and fill up a sanitized pint mason jar and throw it in the fridge for next time. Each time that you do this the yeast gets cheaper. The only thing that will cost you is the DME. One could also harvest the yeast from a previous brew. I haven't tackled that because the starter thing works great for me.
As far as LME or DME goes, it seems like it's not very easy to locate a 'cheap' price on that stuff. I am fortunate that at one of the LHBS they sell bulk Pilsen Light LME for $2/pound. I just tell them how much I want and they put it in a sealed plastic bag. You could shop around and possibly buy bulk. I did find a 50 pound bag of DME from GW Kent for around $130 shipped. That's the best price I could find. Perhaps with a little more research or a group buy you can do better.
Now let's go back to the original recipe. Some may not think that 6.5 ounces is enough hops for an IPA. I disagree but to each their own. I recently heard of a 5 gallon recipe that included over 1 pound of hops. I'm sure that's delicious but I assure 6.5 ounces makes a delicious IPA as well.
I modified that original recipe recently where I swapped out the Cascade for Simcoe and the Mosaic for US Golding. I also added a 15 minute addition and 2 more ounces for the dry hop. There was also an additional pound of LME and 8 ounces of corn sugar. This is what I'm currently drinking and it's very good but different than the original.You could easily swap out the steeping grains for something different such as Crystal or just about anything.
You could make it a pound of each or add another flavor. There could be dark or amber LME in place of the Pilsen Light. Use a different strain of yeast or some dry yeast. Get a variety of hops like myself and exBEERiment! It would be very difficult to ruin a beer like this or even get one that you couldn't drink. I bought a pound of Lemon Drop hops recently. With a name like that it can't be bad, right?
Happy brewing!
I'll give the 007 yeast a try sometime. I'm very open to your suggestions.
