love to brew but dont drink much.

[bsdx]

One idea would be to try to trade some homebrew for some more expensive or hard to find commercial beers. It could take some work but maybe you could just offer a 4 or six pack of selectable homebrew types for each beer from a 'top 50' list or something. There are plenty of commercial beers I'd like to try if I had more money, I love having selection but it takes more convincing to buy at the $4/12oz level and above.

 

[hoppymonkey]

Now that's a good idea. I drink at Taco mac down here and they have a 300+ beer selections plus 50 or so on tap. I always at a loss as to what to try. This is an awesome idea!:rockin:

 

[KC10Chief]

I brew 5 gallon batches. Usually, it's just me drinking my beer, and I can barely keep the supply up with the demand! My wife doesn't like beer. I have friends that help sometimes too. Unfortunately, I was putting on weight and that's not cool since I'm in the Air Force. I've had to cut my beer drinking way back and it's starting to pile up. I'll just have to make beer less often now.

 

[eanmcnulty]

I'm really happy to see this thread. After a bout with the Gout, I find I need to cut back on drinking beer, and I need to change the diet a little. So, I have begun to brew 2.5 gallon batches. I just bought a 3g Better Bottle (my first) and so far I really like it. We will see how easy it is to clean after I bottle next week.

I had been thinking about going bigger, and I was researching and trying to figure out what I would need and the cost and all, and then this happened. It actually solved my space problem. Instead of going bigger, I am going smaller.

The past two batches have been "No-Sparge" which is nice, because I was messing up sparging anyway. I am still new with only 17 batches brewed, about 8 of them all-grain and a couple of partial-mashes. By not sparging, brewing becomes simpler. I don't need an HLT any more. I just heat my water in my BK and pour it into the MLT, then drain back into the BK. Also, the time it takes to brew is shorter. I'm shooting for 3.5 hours, but I haven't hit it yet.

I don't need to buy a bigger brew pot. My 20qt pot is fine. I do want to put a port on it and maybe start using a plate chiller or a CFC. I would like to shorten that cooling time. I just can't seem to get it cool very quickly with my IC. 10 minutes would be nice!

Overall, small batches would allow me time to brew more often (even after work) and not have a lot of beer to store. No-sparge is much less efficient, but the batch size is so small that efficiency isn't so important to me. The ingredients cost very little for each batch. Smaller equipment is easier to store. I can even brew in the kitchen when it gets cold out.

Sharing my beer can be a problem, but maybe I'll just be more selfish.

Now, I need to figure out how to adjust these recipes.

 

[Dr_Gordon_Freeman]

I feel your pain. I love brewing, but average for me is about a 500mL beer a night. This equates to a batch every few months. I really want to brew more so I can experiment! I guess it'll be more 1gal batches for me. I'll definitely pick up some more 1gal carboys.