My new goal- $10.00 to make 5 gallons

[bovineblitz]

I'd brew all berliner weisse and ordinary bitter. Use boiled down second runnings for the next batch's starter. Obviously repitch.

 

[divrguy]

Yup you are right. I have had some downright terrible 50 dollar batches and some outstanding 10 dollar batches. If more money cured everything then I would agree with you but come on we are talking a house beer here or I guess the better term is a session beer.

I have a lower than session beer that I love that've less than $10. I have a $50 beer that I love as well. I didn't say it cured anything... I said they were different.

 

[ClarnoBrewer]

My experience is a little extreme. I used to live in the middle of nowhere, 2 hours from the nearest LHBS. Also, the bulk of my work was seasonal, so I had lots of free time in the winter. A brewer and rancher nearby grew 2-row malting barley. I bought it from him by the bag. I think I paid $18 for a 50lb bag. I malted it myself, and was even able to get pretty close on some specialty roasts. I also was growing my own hops and freezing yeast. I would pitch onto trub whenever possible.

So, just looking at ingredient costs, the cheapest I brewed was under $5 for a 5 gallon batch. Like I said, there was a lot of time and work involved, as well as equipment costs, but it's fun to see how low you can get the ingredient costs.

 

[johns]

It can be done, especially if you are keeping the ABV low. It's gonna be a bit of a challenge however. Bulk 2 row cost me around .58/ pound. Specialty grains are about 1.69 for me, but you can search on making your own crystal malts at home from your bulk pale malt. Reusing yeast and bulk hops will save you a lot. My hops are .90/oz average. I bitter with magnum, so I use very little to get my ibu to bitter. Propane cost me $3 for a 60 min boil.

I can make a simple pale ale for about $10. That doesn't include caps or co2, or sanitizer though.

What store do you go to? I pay almost double for that in my area?

 

[Proboscidea]

This is not going to be everybody's bag, but when I hear of a simple cheap grain bill with minimal hops, I think about the chance to experiment with spices and other flavoring agents. Since there aren't all those hops and roasty toasty malts to get in the way of the flavorings.

Spices are cheap at Indian, Asian or Central American grocery stores. Coriander, chamomile, orange peel, dried chiles, cardamom, nutmeg, dried fruits, coffee beans, basil, raspberries, all that kind of stuff. Stuff you may already have in your cupboard or growing in your yard.

Anyway, it sounds like you want a nice steady repeatable recipe for daily drinking, so maybe this notion is not up your alley. But if you ever get bored ...

 

[jiggs_casey]

This sounds like a pretty cool challenge! If you found a smash recipe that you like and started harvesting your own yeast, I'll bet you could get pretty close (propane / electricity costs included).

Are you limiting your brewing to beer?

 

[eric19312]

OP--thanks for the great thread! I can't tell you how to get to $10/batch because I'm really not running anywhere close to that number even buying bulk grain ad re-using yeast up to 4 generations (got 9 batches so far out of a single pack of US-05).

My wife is a CPA. She puts my capital costs at about $20/batch assuming 30 batch depreciation schedule. That is my basic all grain set up, bottles and other gear i bought before Quicken got involved. After if get through the 30 batches if my gear doesn't need replacing costs will drop and I can get into kegging...

I use Beer Alchemy (yep that was added to my CapEx "other gear") and track all my ingredient/consumable costs there. Sunday I brewed two batches which ran $23 and $35 in ingredients respectively. First was a 5.2 abv amber ale using 11 pounds MO plus a pound of specialty grain for $14 in grain. 2 oz hops was about $3 buying in bulk. Yeast was $4 as I brewed this batch intentionally to get a new first generation crop of US05 started. rest of costs were for caps ($1.25), yeast nutrient, whirlfloc and gypsum. Second batch was a 1.080 imperial ipa with $20 worth of grain and $16 worth of hops...LBHS scored some Amarillo and I've been dying to try it. Yeast was free from a 4th generation US05. Hope I didn't waste expensive batch trying to save on yeast but was very fresh and washed.

Anyway I estimate I'm running average of $25 ingredients + $20 capital per batch. Still a bargain compared to the $15 growlers I otherwise buy from my local microbrewer given a 5 gallon batch = 10 growlers.

Note I've not been able to find grain pricing anywhere close to what some of the other posters have described. I'm paying $1.10/lb buying 50 lb sacks from LHBS. That includes NY tax and there is no shipping charge but I'd sure like to find some of that $0.35/lb 2-row mentioned above!

 

[jiggs_casey]

This is making me think.

Last year I tried my first lager and screwed it up. Anyway, it was a take on the 'american light' style and had it at $36 for a 10 gallon batch. I have been wanting to retry the same recipe only using US-05 instead of a lager yeast, because I have been using US-05 for pretty much everything lately!

In order to get the grain that cheap, (0.89 a lb for 2-row), I had to search around a bit but, I would bet that you can still find it that cheap. Check amazon. I saw 10 lb bags of 2-row for $7 and change last week!

Damnit! This thread will probably have me all night...

 

[lowtones84]

Great thread. Even if I can't get that low there are just lots of great ideas and good, simple recipes.

Thanks everybody!

 

[BobbiLynn]

Up early this morning, printing off some of this info, my head is just swirling with ideas now. And I actually do have a green thumb, even make my own composted soil- costs me nothing, just labor. I like working hard and staying active so the labor part doesn't bother me. Many people have told me, even bosses at "real" jobs I've had in the past that I am the hardest worker they have ever met. I run a farm and planning a huge sorghum crop this spring. Last year I grew just for the seed heads.

Are you limiting your brewing to beer?

I have done some cheap wine(fruit juice, extra sugar and yeast in one gallon glass jugs and an airlock) but I think I better just stick with the beer. Wine just doesn't float my boat. It was fun to make but the drinking it part, I could do without.

This is not going to be everybody's bag, but when I hear of a simple cheap grain bill with minimal hops, I think about the chance to experiment with spices and other flavoring agents. Since there aren't all those hops and roasty toasty malts to get in the way of the flavorings.

Spices are cheap at Indian, Asian or Central American grocery stores. Coriander, chamomile, orange peel, dried chiles, cardamom, nutmeg, dried fruits, coffee beans, basil, raspberries, all that kind of stuff. Stuff you may already have in your cupboard or growing in your yard.

Anyway, it sounds like you want a nice steady repeatable recipe for daily drinking, so maybe this notion is not up your alley. But if you ever get bored ...

I actually do like this idea, especially the thought of combining my 2 favorite beverages, beer and coffee. And I do grow spices as well as buy a lot for cooking. Sometimes they sit in the cabinet so long that they go bad... I don't like wasting stuff.... but first I better just get a good, cheap base recipe going, then I can get all froggy with it.


Fun, fun, thanks for all the tips!!!

 

[eric19312]

This is making me think.

Last year I tried my first lager and screwed it up. Anyway, it was a take on the 'american light' style and had it at $36 for a 10 gallon batch. I have been wanting to retry the same recipe only using US-05 instead of a lager yeast, because I have been using US-05 for pretty much everything lately!

In order to get the grain that cheap, (0.89 a lb for 2-row), I had to search around a bit but, I would bet that you can still find it that cheap. Check amazon. I saw 10 lb bags of 2-row for $7 and change last week!

Damnit! This thread will probably have me all night...

US-05 is da bomb


But the $7 bag of grain on Amazon is +$16 shipping...
Best price for that bag including shipping is $20....

I alway include shaping in my costs when entering into inventory. For example I bought $40 in specialty grains and a bag of hops from Farmhouse, but shipping brought the bill to $50 so everything got a 25% markup when I added them in.

 

[BobbiLynn]

I get those free shipping deals from "my Amazon" all the time. Many times I have gotten free shipping on items and it had to have cost more to ship then the items were even worth. I think it's like a preferred customer thing? I order tons of stuff from Amazon, even groceries when I find them cheap and can stock up... just wait for the free shipping offer to pop up.

 

[Mojzis]

I have Amazon prime and I get free 2-day shipping on just about everything sold by Amazon itself. I forget how much it costs a year though....

 

[BobbiLynn]

I have Amazon prime and I get free 2-day shipping on just about everything sold by Amazon itself. I forget how much it costs a year though....

Same here, has to be stuff sold by Amazon itself. I don't think I pay anything for it but maybe it is one of those annoying charges that come out of my bank account once a year. Not sure on this, but can't you actually earn the upgrade without paying for it? Just by buying enough stuff from them? I do like the messages though, "you qualify for...." I recently bought 8 - 1/2 gallon bottles of fruit juice for about $15 bucks on sale with free shipping. Had to have cost them more than $15.00 to ship it. And I got fruit juice to go with breakfast or to make into cheap wine... the original reason for the purchase.

 

[eric19312]

I have Amazon prime too. But the $7.15 price for the 10 lb sack is not Amazon Prime eligible. To get the same bag on Amazon Prime is $20.


I've been looking at 50 lb bags from a couple prominent online vendors. Rahr 2-row runs about $35 for the bag. That sounds good. But best price I could find for 2 sacks that included shipping (ground) to NEw York was $114. I get Briess for that or better from LHBS, not sure if there is a quality difference between Briess and Rahr but the online stores sell Rahr at a lower price than the Briess.

Near as I can figure, getting the $70/100 lbs price point will require participating in a group buy that is purchasing multiples of 40 bags of grain. I see one organized in here for my state but delivery is still about 50 miles away so I'd need to figure in gas costs plus sending money in advance to people I don't know...I'm sure it would be safe but not really preferred.

I'm recently returned to the hobby after a 20 year hiatus so maybe I'm overlooking something.

 

[bkl63]

I'm lucky to be in South Jersey where we have a very active Group Buy culture going on. We are just completing the 35th one since 2010. Bulk Grain runs me under $.70 lb and I have 150 lbs of various grain in stock right now. Also members get together and split bags of specialty grains as well. I've gotten D2 Belgian Candy syrup for 10.00 for 3 pounds which is 7/lb at my LHBS.

 

[Lushife]

I'm lucky to be in South Jersey where we have a very active Group Buy culture going on. We are just completing the 35th one since 2010. Bulk Grain runs me under $.70 lb and I have 150 lbs of various grain in stock right now. Also members get together and split bags of specialty grains as well. I've gotten D2 Belgian Candy syrup for 10.00 for 3 pounds which is 7/lb at my LHBS.

When's the next one I wanna get in on that.

 

[bkl63]

Happens almost monthly. It's right here on Homebrewtalk, hit the Group Buy section and you can sign up there. Pickup is in Pennsauken, NJ.

When's the next one I wanna get in on that.

 

[bkl63]

They open and close in 1 to 2 days. Last order was 3 pallets around 120 bags, up from the normal two but still only took a day to close. You need to know what you want and get it in as soon as it opens, procrastination will surely mean you will miss it.

 

[Hogarthe]

I did an english bitter for under $15, and that included buying yeast and hops. if you grew your own hops, which is pretty easy if you have a good location to plant them, and saved your yeast every batch, you could save even more. instead of buying dme for yeast starters, run a couple quarts of water through the mash after you are done collecting your wort for the boil. you can then freeze this wort and use it for a starter next time.

 

[Lushife]

They open and close in 1 to 2 days. Last order was 3 pallets around 120 bags, up from the normal two but still only took a day to close. You need to know what you want and get it in as soon as it opens, procrastination will surely mean you will miss it.

I think I asked to be put on the email list for it. Does lordura run it?

 

[kombat]

Instead of buying dme for yeast starters, run a couple quarts of water through the mash after you are done collecting your wort for the boil. you can then freeze this wort and use it for a starter next time.

Huh, that's a good idea, I'd never thought of that. I would imagine, however, that the S.G. of that wort would be a little low (starter wort should be 1.040), but I wonder if it would be close enough that a little boiling could get you there?

Anyone know what S.G. one could expect from a couple quarts of post-sparge runnings? If it's typically 1.010 then it's probably not worth it, but if it's in the 1.030 neighborhood, then you could boil that down to 1.040 and this might actually work.

I'm planning a brew this weekend, I'll try to remember to collect a couple quarts of post-sparge wort and see what kind of S.G. it has.

 

[Lushife]

Huh, that's a good idea, I'd never thought of that. I would imagine, however, that the S.G. of that wort would be a little low (starter wort should be 1.040), but I wonder if it would be close enough that a little boiling could get you there?

Anyone know what S.G. one could expect from a couple quarts of post-sparge runnings? If it's typically 1.010 then it's probably not worth it, but if it's in the 1.030 neighborhood, then you could boil that down to 1.040 and this might actually work.

I'm planning a brew this weekend, I'll try to remember to collect a couple quarts of post-sparge wort and see what kind of S.G. it has.

I think I might try that as well. I have plenty of some right now but I might as well experiment before I ran out.

 

[logan3825]

Not possible.

Even when doing a bulk grain buy(35ish a sack of 2 row), using minimal hops bought in bulk, minimal specialty grains and adjuncts, and yeast washing, slanting ect....the cost of DME for starters, propane(this is a big one), water(if you dont filter), star san, cleaners, caps, ect will put you over that limit quickly. Thats not even considering amortizing equipment costs.

You forgot to count time in there. Even if it only takes 2 hours you would lose whatever you could have made at a part time job. Yes, that was sarcasm.

 

[bkl63]

Yes... Jeff os the South Jersey God of Grains in my opinion.

I think I asked to be put on the email list for it. Does lordura run it?

 

[bkl63]

Same with the time spent drinking beer. Just a dose of reality. Oh... and I drink beer when I brew, so already multitasking.

You forgot to count time in there. Even if it only takes 2 hours you would lose whatever you could have made at a part time job. Yes, that was sarcasm.

 

[dog_gone]

I *just* happened to do a search for malt on Amazon and saw this message for the first time ever:
__________
This item is available because of the new Add-on program
The Add-on program allows Amazon to offer thousands of low-priced items that would be cost-prohibitive to ship on their own. These items ship with qualifying orders over $25 and are eligible for free shipping. Details.
__________

Hmmm... this new program could come in handy for a lot of things I need!

 

[jflongo]

I *just* happened to do a search for malt on Amazon and saw this message for the first time ever:
__________
This item is available because of the new Add-on program
The Add-on program allows Amazon to offer thousands of low-priced items that would be cost-prohibitive to ship on their own. These items ship with qualifying orders over $25 and are eligible for free shipping. Details.
__________

Hmmm... this new program could come in handy for a lot of things I need!

Wow though, $6.99 for a LB.

 

[Varmintman]

In my happy world it does not cost money to brew beer. Matter of fact in my happy world people are calling me to give me ingredients. Matter of they want to get rid of them so much they are willing to pay me to take them

Then I wake up

 

[thadius856]

Bulk 2 row cost me around .58/ pound.

Super jealous. I'm lucky to find it for $0.90/lb in sack quantities, plus 7.5% tax.