Make your own beer, they said. You'll save money, they said.

[bwible]

Am I the only one who's happy enough bottling? I'll admit that the sanitising step is a bit laborious, but an evening listening to music and completing the job is well spent in my opinion. When I'm done, the bottles stand before me like loyal subjects. It's very satisfying to see the output of the process, plus they're easy to share, ration, and you can see when you're going to run out.

We'll see if I change my tune once I've bottled a NEIPA.

I’ve gotten back to bottling this year in a big way. I have 9 batches in bottles and 3 more soon to be bottled. Granted, they are 3 gallon batches. 30 bottles is not as bad as 50. Prior to this year, I had not bottled anything for years.

 

[Nagorg]

I started home-brewing because... Well, because I wanted to make beer and then make better beer than the last time. I had no delusions that it would somehow save me any money.

That said, with $20.00 - $40.00 4-packs showing up on the shelves these days I'd say there's some money to be saved by making your own. You just cant factor in the equipment costs!

 

[BlutoA10C]

Am I the only one who's happy enough bottling? I'll admit that the sanitising step is a bit laborious, but an evening listening to music and completing the job is well spent in my opinion. When I'm done, the bottles stand before me like loyal subjects. It's very satisfying to see the output of the process, plus they're easy to share, ration, and you can see when you're going to run out.

We'll see if I change my tune once I've bottled a NEIPA.

I'm with you on this one. Although, I do see real value in terms of space/time in kegging, until I have my "man bar" built, I don't really have a good place for kegerator. I don't care for cleaning either, but I do get a weird sense of OCD satisfaction during the bottling process, especially while capping and stacking. Therefore . . . I bring you Beermagedon . . . Cheers!

 

[Ragman]

speaking of bottling.... what would be the result of pouring my kegged beer into a sanitized beer bottle and capping it? - not a growler or even one of those bottles with the swing top caps.... just a regular bottle and cap attached with a capper.

 

[Elric]

I didn't go into home brewing because it would make cheaper beer. Heck, if anything home brewing has increased how much craft beer I am buying as opposed to lowering it as I want to try more and different styles to see what I want to try making next. I did however get into the hobby telling my wife that to start it would be a minimal outlay of money to see if I enjoyed the hobby. I neglected to mention how quickly costs would spiral when I found I did enjoy it. Than again, we have been married twenty years and she has seen enough of my hobbies to have had to have known where this would go!

 

[Elric]

speaking of bottling.... what would be the result of pouring my kegged beer into a sanitized beer bottle and capping it? - not a growler or even one of those bottles with the swing top caps.... just a regular bottle and cap attached with a capper.

you would want to purge the bottle with co2 first and use some sort of counter-fill arrangement to bottle or you will just get a huge bottle of foam that oxidizes quite quickly. You can either buy something like the blickman beer gun or look to diy a simple one. There is a thread on here somewhere about how to make your own counter-filler with a siphon and bottle stop which I have used with some success.

 

[Dancy]

Am I the only one who's happy enough bottling? I'll admit that the sanitising step is a bit laborious, but an evening listening to music and completing the job is well spent in my opinion. When I'm done, the bottles stand before me like loyal subjects. It's very satisfying to see the output of the process, plus they're easy to share, ration, and you can see when you're going to run out.

I’m happy enough bottling but frankly I don’t have the space or money to keg. Also, I bottle 5G batches, not so bad. I can’t imagine bottling if all I brewed was 10, 15G batches.
I thoroughly rinse a bottle immediately after pouring it. I then do a couple of squirts (fine spray) of StarSan into the bottle and set it aside for a few hours or a day and then when I get around to it, rinse it once and turn it upside down to drain and dry before putting back in the box. When it’s time to bottle, I bake 50+ bottles in my oven the night before bottling. Then I sit on a stool next to the open oven, bottling bucket in front of me and the kitchen counter next to me — goes pretty quickly.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

speaking of bottling.... what would be the result of pouring my kegged beer into a sanitized beer bottle and capping it? - not a growler or even one of those bottles with the swing top caps.... just a regular bottle and cap attached with a capper.

sounds like another purchase, haha... blichman beer gun is the answer. i bought one maybe a couple years ago and it works great. i rarely bottle, but have recently been doing more of it and the convenience and functionality are great.
i imagine you could hook a hose up to your tap and fill the bottle from the bottom up, let the foam run out the top, cap it, wipe it down and would be "ok" to transport somewhere. but i wouldnt expect to get any shelf life out of it. essentially the same thing as filling a growler at that point.

 

[Kharnynb]

I'm around 700€ of actual gear over the years, with about 500€ worth I still use. This is over 5 years.
I can brew 2 and a half crates worth of good beer for 20€, even the cheapest swill in the store costs 25€ per crate(24 bottles).
This means at minimum, I save 30€ per batch I brew, at 20 batches average per year over 5 years, that's 100x30€, so I can spend 2000€ before I'm losing money on this deal

 

[Senormac]

Am I the only one who's happy enough bottling? I'll admit that the sanitising step is a bit laborious, but an evening listening to music and completing the job is well spent in my opinion. When I'm done, the bottles stand before me like loyal subjects. It's very satisfying to see the output of the process, plus they're easy to share, ration, and you can see when you're going to run out.

Easy to share !! And if you have even the smallest skills with a printer and the inter-webs, you can make your own labels which really up your presentation on the gifting/sharing side of bottling

 

[hawaiibrewer]

One needs to "rationalize" better when comparing brewing to other popular hobbies. Golf at $60+ a round, twice a week adds up quickly. How about snow skiing at $100+ a lift ticket. Then there is tennis at $200/racket, $3/new balls, 3 times a week..not counting new shoes at $80/pair every 6 months. New pool table...$2500. Then of course we have scuba diving...$2500 will get you some decent gear but then the airfills at $5/fill add up...or a boat charter at $125+ now and then. Pick your poison...home brewing is right in there with the best of hobbies.

I started in order to make better beer since 22 years it was near impossible to get a good "craft style" beer delivered to Hawaii...plus I needed a new hobby as weekly golf was beyond my budget in Hawaii.

The big move in my brewing process came when I got rid of my two refrigerators I used in my garage to ferment in and built the back yard brewery, with temperature controlled chill room for fermentation and bottling/storing/aging....a mere $6000 later. Hey, it could have been 100 rounds of golf over the past 22 years.

 

[Reneauj62]

I wish I could have got off that cheap. I am up to $4k.... I bought not one, but two Grainfathers ($1000 ea.) and neither boil so now I am looking at a 220/240v System..... That should be cheap, right?

 

[Broothru]

it is sweet to brew inside, i wont tell you what i spent on my equipment but at 36 years old i have lots of years for it to "pay for itself" in money saved by brewing. i love this hobby and i wouldnt change any of the decisions ive made on equipment purchases. btw you save more money when you buy in bulk .... so your gonna need a grain mill..

I'm twice your age, so I guess I have to drink it twice as fast. Unless I drink twice as much. But then I'd have to have at least twice as many years left to drink than you do, so maybe I have to drink four times as much, or brew 16 times more often....or..or..or.....

Oh, hell. It's time for another home brew.

 

[grampamark]

Whenever I see one of these threads I recalculate my total cost of brewing since I started 9 years and 8 months ago.

I have about $1600 in equipment, which includes a ghetto quality, 3 vessel system at our farm (where I do most of my brewing), a ghetto quality BIAB system at our city house, a 3 tap kegerator and a dedicated ferm fridge. At an average of $25/batch (which is a little high but I’d rather estimate on the conservative side) I’ve spent about $2800 on ingredients, for a total cost of around $4400. If I had bought the equivalent amount of cheap swill, at $20/30 pack, I’d have spent about $4500. But, I don’t drink cheap swill. Craft beer which is comparable to the styles I brew costs $8-10/6 pack. At $9 average I would have spent a little over $11,000 on beer.

If you’re not saving money by homebrewing you’re doing it wrong. Either you spend too much on equipment, or you don’t drink enough to justify the equipment you have. Gear doesn’t make beer. Buy inexpensive, basic equipment, brew often enough to develop a simple, easily repeatable process, buy quality ingredients, and save money. If building a brewery is more important than brewing, well, that’s a hobby, too. The only money that will save you is by comparing your cost/pint to what that pint would cost in a brewpub. You can claim a “savings” but you won’t live long enough to pay for your brewery that way.

Either way, we’re discussing a hobby. Whether the way one chooses to participate in that hobby saves money, or doesn’t, is immaterial, as long as the hobbyist is having fun.

 

[brewster2012]

The other thing to consider is residual value of higher end brewing equipment. There is almost no "wear and tear" on stainless components that are properly used, cleaned, and maintained. Therefore, if you ever want (or need) to leave the hobby you have the resale value to gain back. If you bought most of your equipment used and at a fair price, you should be able to resell said equipment to get your initial outlay of cash back (or most of it anyway).

I look at equipment expenditures as an investment in an asset. The money I've spent on equipment would earn almost nothing for me in a savings account with today's interest rates, but it brings be great joy as a hobby to brew which brings a "non-monetary" value to my life much like pets, friends, family, dining out, vacations, etc. If I really need the cash money in American greenback dollars in the future, rather than withdrawing the money from the bank, I would be forced to sell my brewing equipment. Possibly going back to plastic buckets and bottling. It might take a little time and effort to sell everything but it would all sell in due time if priced fairly.

I also view brewing beer as one of my "survival skills" if civilized society breaks down (farther than it already has, anyway), but I'll save that rant for another post...

 

[tracer bullet]

Does anyone else sometimes get beer bits shipped to their work address, so it looks like is being spent than it really is?

 

[Broothru]

I make I'd have to go to my local bottle shop (Select Beer in Redondo Beach for example) and to get 2 cases of, lets say, 12% stout would run me a good 125 bucks.

you'd be burning a hole in your pocket. Russian River Brewing Co. cases break down to 7.25 for a single bottle. Their beer is good, but with my homebrew turning out quite nicely I will say I don't need to pay 84 bucks for a 12 bottle case of blind pig when I could make something equivalent to it or close for half that cost.

Ah... Redondo Beach. Back in my younger days (before I stopped working for a living and spending much of my life on the road) I used to waste brain cells down at the Redondo Beach Brewing Co., the Riviera for fantastic fish tacos, followed by a stop at Fatburger for a 'nightcap'. Loved trips to SoCal, but NorCal was where I gained an appreciation for craft beers like Sierra Nevada and even Anchor Steam. Did a road trip from the East Coast all the way to Russian River for a case of PtE a few years ago before the fires nearly destroyed the area. Good times.

 

[Broothru]

I'm with you on this one. Although, I do see real value in terms of space/time in kegging, until I have my "man bar" built, I don't really have a good place for kegerator. I don't care for cleaning either, but I do get a weird sense of OCD satisfaction during the bottling process, especially while capping and stacking. Therefore . . . I bring you Beermagedon . . . Cheers!View attachment 707102

Man, you got it backwards. Guns go on the shelf. Beer goes in the safe!

 

[bracconiere]

You can claim a “savings” but you won’t live long enough to pay for your brewery that way.

i eat cheap too. maybe i should start a thread, is eating beans, and rice cheaper then eating meat?

(and here's what a $1.49 bag of your split peas looks like on my end!)

now if i wanted it good, and fast, expensive, i could use my All-American pressure cooker, and cook them with ham shanks, a lot of cheddar.

but honestly i want it cheap and fast, so i'll run them through my wonder mill to make flour. throw 3oz's of the flour in a pot with some chicken broth and add some homemade curry powder. healthier, cheaper, and faster. but the mill was $200 that i bought 10 years ago.

DIY, or DITWYW

 

[davidabcd]

Funny. Good posts as well. Buying cool, useful and expensive equipment is definitely a thing. I wouldn't try and use "price" as the main factor for something you enjoy doing. It's not the avenue I chose to pursue but it looks fun.

I've been satisfied buying a couple 7.9 gallon buckets to supplement the equipment I was given plus a few odds and ends. Just bottling for me. I don't mind it and once you have a system down, not a problem.
Two four-packs cost $30. I can make a batch for $35. I'm drinking the next 40 beers for free.

 

[bracconiere]

Two four-packs cost $30.

damn, now there's a piece of work! what's next are they going to try and get people to main-line it, or snort it? vape maybe!

 

[davidabcd]

vape maybe!

The higher ABV, craft beers cost an arm and a leg. I can't get below $35 (and won't try to) because I use DME.

 

[bracconiere]

The higher ABV, craft beers cost an arm and a leg. I can't get below $35 (and won't try to) because I use DME.

damn man. i'd be drinking wheat germ table sugar washes before i was forking out $30 for 8 beers....nothing wrong with DME, it's like flavored sugar that allready has nutes for the yeast! (just requires paying other people to take some of the work off your shoulders.)

 

[JacktardBrewmeister]

Ah... Redondo Beach. Back in my younger days (before I stopped working for a living and spending much of my life on the road) I used to waste brain cells down at the Redondo Beach Brewing Co., the Riviera for fantastic fish tacos, followed by a stop at Fatburger for a 'nightcap'. Loved trips to SoCal, but NorCal was where I gained an appreciation for craft beers like Sierra Nevada and even Anchor Steam. Did a road trip from the East Coast all the way to Russian River for a case of PtE a few years ago before the fires nearly destroyed the area. Good times.

Yeah, Najas was the stop for me right at King Harbor Pier near Quality Seafood and the Arcade (which is gone now). Najas always had Pliney and some good Firestone exclusive stouts. A lot of the bottle shops are carrying the nicer stuff now, but when I can brew it myself, I find it 10x cheaper on average and I enjoy the hobby.

I got a time share in Nor Cal in Windsor and the best part, the new Russian River Brewing Co. facility is right behind it since they expanded out of Santa Rosa. There is also Lagunitas, which a lot of people like, nearby as well. I have a soft spot for Firestone stouts in general though, and my brother lives 40 minutes east of Paso Robles. So, usually, every year I have about a case of exclusives from up north and from Paso and then my homebrew. Good beer is worth every penny.

 

[Bad Bubba]

One needs to "rationalize" better when comparing brewing to other popular hobbies. Golf at $60+ a round, twice a week adds up quickly. How about snow skiing at $100+ a lift ticket. Then there is tennis at $200/racket, $3/new balls, 3 times a week..not counting new shoes at $80/pair every 6 months. New pool table...$2500. Then of course we have scuba diving...$2500 will get you some decent gear but then the airfills at $5/fill add up...or a boat charter at $125+ now and then. Pick your poison...home brewing is right in there with the best of hobbies.

I started in order to make better beer since 22 years it was near impossible to get a good "craft style" beer delivered to Hawaii...plus I needed a new hobby as weekly golf was beyond my budget in Hawaii.

The big move in my brewing process came when I got rid of my two refrigerators I used in my garage to ferment in and built the back yard brewery, with temperature controlled chill room for fermentation and bottling/storing/aging....a mere $6000 later. Hey, it could have been 100 rounds of golf over the past 22 years.View attachment 707120

I think you make some very good points. Hobbies can be very expensive - I had my own plane and flying was my hobby/avocation - what I spend on brewing is a drop in the bucket to that hobby. I do snow ski and it is at least $2000 a season and I save some money with a season pass. My son-in-law rebuilds classic cars - I think he has $40K in his '67 Camaro. Hunting is very expensive. The list goes on...

I am fortunate that my wife has some very expensive hobbies and she could care less on what I spend on brewing ( she knows I won't catch up to her).

The only thing I have saved money on is my carpentry, tiling, etc. I probably have about $10,000 worth of tools and have conservatively done about $150K worth or remodeling on our home over the years.

 

[Golddiggie]

sounds like another purchase, haha... blichman beer gun is the answer. i bought one maybe a couple years ago and it works great. i rarely bottle, but have recently been doing more of it and the convenience and functionality are great.
i imagine you could hook a hose up to your tap and fill the bottle from the bottom up, let the foam run out the top, cap it, wipe it down and would be "ok" to transport somewhere. but i wouldnt expect to get any shelf life out of it. essentially the same thing as filling a growler at that point.

Bought my Blichmann beer gun (rev. 1) several years back. This year I changed out the item at the end with the stopper, that seals it when you don't want the beer to flow. The one on the original design wasn't fully captured, so it tended to go out of alignment, or fall off. I had also tweaked mine to use a ball lock post for the gas side (to purge what you're filling).

I would use that to fill swing top bottles. I also use it to fill the 64oz mini-keg that I bought to bring brew to small gatherings (or where we don't need a 3 gallon keg of it). I got another mini keg to give mom beer in. She brought it back the other day for a refill.

I've also used it to fill up cans before sealing them up. Yeah, I got the Cannular machine (reversed rollers, so I 'saved' $100 on it!!). Bought both can sizes (330ml and 500ml). The smaller will be for bigger beers, the larger for lower ABV beers. There's a method to my madness. Really, there is. If things keep going like they have been, I can see getting setup for nitro micro-dosing before sealing the cans. Because why the hell not?? It will be a while off though, since I really don't have space to do that. Which means my brewing gear spend is going to go really high next year. Going to be looking to get a house (been renting) starting in the spring. Part of it will be setup for brewing, and my other hobbies.

 

[oakbarn]

He with the most Shiny Toys wins! There is always a new "wishlist" after I fulfill the one I made yesterday. Hard to say how much I have spent on this hobby over the years, but not insignificant. That being said, it is cheaper than many other hobbies and you get to drink the best beer in the world.

 

[shoreman]

You need to factor in time on those purchases. Brew with the same gear over 20 years and that $100 brew kettle gets a lot cheaper.

I brew for fun but recently I’m brewing 3 gal stovetop with a $10 biab w/ a 5 gallon pot I bought years ago for $20. Bulk malt & hops and I certainly save $$but I’m not counting, takes the fun out of it.

 

[TheBluePhantom]

speaking of bottling.... what would be the result of pouring my kegged beer into a sanitized beer bottle and capping it? - not a growler or even one of those bottles with the swing top caps.... just a regular bottle and cap attached with a capper.

I do that occasionally. nothing fancy, just a tube, sanitized in the nozzle of a picnic tap, fill from the bottom up. Have it a little overcarbed if you can, you will lose some CO2. Get the bottles colder than hell and it will minimize foaming, turn down the serving pressure a bit so it goes slower. you do get foam, but it can be minimized

 

[Senormac]

Ah... Redondo Beach. Back in my younger days (before I stopped working for a living and spending much of my life on the road) I used to waste brain cells down at the Redondo Beach Brewing Co., the Riviera for fantastic fish tacos, followed by a stop at Fatburger for a 'nightcap'. Loved trips to SoCal, but NorCal was where I gained an appreciation for craft beers like Sierra Nevada and even Anchor Steam. Did a road trip from the East Coast all the way to Russian River for a case of PtE a few years ago before the fires nearly destroyed the area. Good times.

I too am familiar with Redondo Beach. I grew up there and even attended RUHS back in the day. WAY back in the day !! RBBC is a cool place. Can't beat sitting on the balcony and throwing down a couple while all the peeps walk past on Catalina Blvd. There is a pretty decent bottle shop just a few blocks from there on PCH. At least there was last time I was down there. I now live in Oregon. Lot's of great beer up here.