What silly things frugal brewers do!
- Thread starter Medic_Dave
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2014
- Messages
- 13,403
- Reaction score
- 23,213
One more thing, brew imperial stouts. Retail they run up to $500/5gal batch. Sours can run $800/5gal batch. But what, HB versions 50-60 bucks? Choose your styles wisely. [emoji6]
28 batches in, I'm still bottling because I can't spend the money to build a kegerator. I would love to just have two taps and space for a third keg to lager, just too many bills and too much going on right now to even build that. I also save yeast for waaay too long (still pitching kölsch yeast I saved from last may) and I DIY everything I can, including my whole elec. biab rig and controller.
I also used to waste 5 gallons of star san every time I brewed, but folks here cured me of that; now i can make a gallon last through several batches with the judicious use of a spray bottle. Never had an infection and not planning to anytime soon, but I also don't need to spend a lot on sanitizer.
I also used to waste 5 gallons of star san every time I brewed, but folks here cured me of that; now i can make a gallon last through several batches with the judicious use of a spray bottle. Never had an infection and not planning to anytime soon, but I also don't need to spend a lot on sanitizer.
Homebrewing, at least the way I’ve been doing it, is sufficiently cheaper than buying craft beer that I haven't been compelled to try pinching pennies.
I went through my brewing notes, and can account for 75 batches brewed since I started a little more than 7 years ago. That's 150 cases of beer. The craft beers that I like sell for $8-10 a six pack; figure $35 bucks a case. That's a little more than $5K worth of beer. I have about $1200 in brewing equipment, kegerator, spare parts, etc. If I figure an average cost of ingredients of $25 per batch (which might be a bit high; better to err on the conservative side), I’ve spent an additional $1875 on ingredients, for a total of a little over $3K. So, I’ve saved a couple thousand bucks over the years. I still buy a little commercial beer, for reference beers and to keep some in the fridge for when the pipeline runs dry, but not enough to erase all the savings.
Another way to look at it is that I’ve spent as much on homebrewing in 7 years as I would have spent on an equivalent amount of BMC beer and had the advantage of drinking better beer for 7 years.
I went through my brewing notes, and can account for 75 batches brewed since I started a little more than 7 years ago. That's 150 cases of beer. The craft beers that I like sell for $8-10 a six pack; figure $35 bucks a case. That's a little more than $5K worth of beer. I have about $1200 in brewing equipment, kegerator, spare parts, etc. If I figure an average cost of ingredients of $25 per batch (which might be a bit high; better to err on the conservative side), I’ve spent an additional $1875 on ingredients, for a total of a little over $3K. So, I’ve saved a couple thousand bucks over the years. I still buy a little commercial beer, for reference beers and to keep some in the fridge for when the pipeline runs dry, but not enough to erase all the savings.
Another way to look at it is that I’ve spent as much on homebrewing in 7 years as I would have spent on an equivalent amount of BMC beer and had the advantage of drinking better beer for 7 years.
wiggybrewer
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2012
- Messages
- 199
- Reaction score
- 31
Got a new Cereal Killer last year, never used. I'm just waiting for my seven year old Barley Crusher to die, I must be one of the lucky ones to have it last that long!
Not silly, imho anyhow:
I stopped using my fermentation fridge here in Thailand and ferment almost all of my brews with Kveik strains.
No extra electricty to pay for.
Sent from my SM-J510FN using Home Brew mobile app
I stopped using my fermentation fridge here in Thailand and ferment almost all of my brews with Kveik strains.
No extra electricty to pay for.
Sent from my SM-J510FN using Home Brew mobile app
anotherbeerplease
Well-Known Member
I throw my brew kettle and carboys away after each use. Start fresh, I always say
Were you able to get Kveik yeast shipped over, procured locally or did you dry it yourself?
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
sounds like a waste of good star san. I make 2 gallons in jugs, put some in a small trigger sprayer . I've learned to not use so much on brew day, just enough to wet the surface . I first clean any heavy "crustys or gunk" with oxiclean, scrub that , apply the star san spray swish it around,dump, reapply. The trick to using less is doing a thorough clean up at the end of brew day so the next one is a basic and minimal cleaning , just a quick once over with star san and its good to go.
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
almost all of my beer glasses came from Goodwill...from $0.50 to $2 .from plain old "flight size "tasters , pilsener to heavy mugs and fancy gold rimmed beer logo glasses. If I break one, no big deal.
Last edited:
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
buy a small trigger sprayer , save money and space.
Lefou
Danged rascally furt
- Joined
- May 1, 2016
- Messages
- 2,300
- Reaction score
- 1,227
Well, now that I have no less than two refrigerators the Nord yeast is becoming fairly easy to get. A couple years ago that wasn't the case but now Voss and Hothead are all the rage.
The yeast I typically brew with - German liquid lager - is out of stock. Go figure.
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
see if they have what I call an "orphan bin" of grains. My old LHBS sells grain in only 1 and 10 pound bags at per pound prices , so if they have any left from the parent sack and its under 1 lb , they put it in a small bag ,label it and price it for $1 . Most times there are more than 1 of the same kind in the orphan bin ...more like 3.
I've never seen that. All the LHBSs that I have been to either sell prepackaged or they sell by weight out of a bin. So there is never anything left over. With the prepackage there is no parent sack. And with the second, when the bin gets low they refill it from the parent sack. When the parent sack is emptied, they open another.
My LHBS that closed last year would have a few “bin bags” at a reduced price... I don’t know why, perhaps they made some recipes. The one I go to now will sell the pound bag of specialty grain and mill what is needed.
Kirkwooder
Emperor of all things nobody cares about
This time of the year, I do an extra mash, after I've mashed and sparged for the beer I'm brewing. Then take the low gravity wort and put in a pot on my wood stove to cook down to 1.040 or so and use it for starter wort.
Then I feed the grains to my chickens, sell their eggs, use that money to buy more grain for the next batch, and start all over.
I even grow my own hops. I am one cheap bastard! I'm so cheap I'm trying to figure out how to harvest CO2 from a fermentation and use it to serve draft.
I've even used cracked corn in place of flaked maze in lager recipes. It's cheap ($12/50#) and I always have it on hand. It is a suitable substitute by the way.
If you really want to be frugal, buy a 50# sack of pale 2 row malt, (roughly $50), ad some farm fresh cracked corn and home grown hops, re-pitch yeast, brew over a wood fire, and you can get 7-8 batches of light lager for under $60.
I spent 6 years out of work recovering from an injury and surgeries with very little income and lots of time. I learned fast how to brew cheap!
Like I said, I'm cheap, not frugal.
Then I feed the grains to my chickens, sell their eggs, use that money to buy more grain for the next batch, and start all over.
I even grow my own hops. I am one cheap bastard! I'm so cheap I'm trying to figure out how to harvest CO2 from a fermentation and use it to serve draft.
I've even used cracked corn in place of flaked maze in lager recipes. It's cheap ($12/50#) and I always have it on hand. It is a suitable substitute by the way.
If you really want to be frugal, buy a 50# sack of pale 2 row malt, (roughly $50), ad some farm fresh cracked corn and home grown hops, re-pitch yeast, brew over a wood fire, and you can get 7-8 batches of light lager for under $60.
I spent 6 years out of work recovering from an injury and surgeries with very little income and lots of time. I learned fast how to brew cheap!
Like I said, I'm cheap, not frugal.
at first glance i didn't see the period in front of that 50, i was thinking i'd cry if i broke a $50 dollar beer glass! lol
Punjom
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2018
- Messages
- 46
- Reaction score
- 41
This has never crossed my mind. Do you place your boil kettle on top of a potbelly stove or fire pit? Have you ever experience any change in beer flavor?
Kirkwooder
Emperor of all things nobody cares about
I've done it both ways. It sucks! It takes forever and ads a ton of work to an already labor intensive process. The open fire ads a bit of smokey hints to a light beer, I don't know if anyone that didn't know it was brewed over open fire would even pick it up.
I grow hops as well, however not enough to use exclusively. Maybe that will change in a few years. I sometimes partigyle and get two batches for one, and do a little baking with the spent grains. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone local with chickens to give the rest to... I used to get fresh eggs in return when I was sharing grains.
Geez, it feels good to not waste.
Geez, it feels good to not waste.
I have a friend who raises chickens and she gets all my spent grain. We have a deal: if she ever feels inclined to give me eggs or meat in return, she needs to give it to a needy family who can use it. Pay it forward, in other words.
And yes, it feels good not to waste. Damn good. I hate waste, absolutely hate it.
No chickens or anyone that has any but I used to compost, now I dump in a bed with those curved border pavers. It must have had a plant at one time. I brew infrequently enough that the previous dump has pretty much decomposed by the time of the next brew. I think I will dump the next one on the lawn and rake it into the grass. No waste.
I have one, it's full of kegs!
danielthemaniel
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2018
- Messages
- 192
- Reaction score
- 119
I think silly would be the habits you have formed that may benefit one of your efficiencies but to a much smaller degree that it would benefit another efficiency. Therefore, making the decision silly.Define "silly." Is that like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller?
I like efficiency. Sometimes that's time efficiency, sometimes ingredient efficiency, sometimes fiscal efficiency.
I hate waste, but there's a point where avoiding waste becomes time-costly--and thus the efficiency of conservation of ingredients or materials conflicts with the efficiency of doing things as time-efficiently as possible.
So what is "silly" probably has to do with what one's goals are, and which goals are more important at which point. Everyone has their own goals, and nobody is wrong for having them, whatever they are.
********
When I started brewing I was much more concerned with fiscal efficiency, i.e., saving money; as my goals changed, fiscal efficiency became less important and the quality of the beer became more important. Also, time efficiency started overriding fiscal efficiency; that's one reason I bought a Jaded Hydra chiller, which changed a 15-minute-plus chilling time to 4 minutes.
Sometimes I go backwards in efficiency, in favor of the beer. I'm doing LODO techniques, and a copper Jaded Hydra isn't what I need to keep copper out of the wort. So I now have a stainless counterflow chiller, which is not anywhere near as fast. The trade is time for no copper. <sigh>
Fifteen years ago, with kids still at home, fiscal efficiency would have trumped all; now that I'm an empty-nester, that's less a focus.
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
I've resparged, turned into a wonderful brew.
Id love to grow my own hops . Since we live out in the country I'd like to try it . What hops do you grow?
Sounds like a nice cream ale.
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the catch , I edited a "0" before the decimal.
Ive even bought an unopened "the ultimate book of beers" with a companion pilsener glass gift pack, still wrapped in factory cellophane . $3
The book and glass caught my eye enough , then I discovered on the cover there is an Austrian beer with the same name as my mothers maiden name ,which we always thought was German.
lump42
The Lajestic Vantrashell of Lob
I don't reuse my starsan after a few days mostly because I'm forgetful/lazy and don't get DI water. It starts getting cloudy and I start questioning it's efficacy when the surfactants start precipitating. I offset it by using a medicine syringe and making a quart spray bottle at a time. After 5 years, I just finished my first 16 oz bottle and bought a 32 oz to replace it. At this rate, I'll be buying star san in 2029.
i hesr ya, but to me the trick is not worrying about the $1 of starsan
I used to spray the inside of my bottles to sanitize, but found it wasn't always effective. I also used to pour starsan back into the jug and reuse, now I dump it after use. I used to try to hit my volume and efficiency exactly, now I just make a little more to ensure a full keg. The rest gets dumped, because bottling the last bit was a hassle.
So I guess I don't really do anything silly to save money in brewing. But I'm not giving up extensive cost saving habits in the rest of my life. I need that money to brew!
So I guess I don't really do anything silly to save money in brewing. But I'm not giving up extensive cost saving habits in the rest of my life. I need that money to brew!
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
I'm just saying, if you're making up an entire 5 gallon batch only to toss it, why not just make a 1 gallon batch ,put only what you need to use in a hand sprayer and not waste as much? Let your Oxiclean or PBW do the heavy work and just sanitize .It is a contact sanitizer. It only needs to get wet or let the foam hit it for it to work. I realize its $1 , but it adds up . after 10 batches , thats $10, the cost of a batch of grain.
OG-wan Kenobi
Arcane Artisanal Ales
$1??
32 oz is $20 and I get 20% if I time it right it's only 50 cents worth of star san I dump, that's why I have no clue why people seem to obsess over saving it. I also go with fresh clean star san every time
lump42
The Lajestic Vantrashell of Lob
You could start a simple compost bin to but the rest of your spent grains. Free compost comes out the other end.
lump42
The Lajestic Vantrashell of Lob
Everybody gets hung up on silly things all the time. The only time I ever saved mine is if I remember to get DI water. Otherwise I hold mine for about a week to make sure nothing comes up right after a batch. I make up a quart at a time. 32oz was ~$25. 32oz makes 640 qts. So I'm only spending $0.04 per batch on sanitizer.
I'm still frugal with it though. When I sanitize kegs I fill them full with star san and push out with CO2, but I won't do that until most of my kegs are ready to go. I can't bring myself to 'waste' the 5 gal of star san. I know its just pocket change, but it makes me twitch to use 5 gal for just one or two kegs.
Sometimes I compost, and sometimes I take it a couple blocks and put it in the woods for deer and whatever woodland creatures find it. We have occasional rat sightings with a couple restaurants nearby, which makes composting without a closed composter an invitation for the vermin.
50 cents! you know on a 5 gal batch that would be 11.25 cents more a twelve pack! lol
that'd be a deal breaker for me!
i just sanitize my fermenter with 190f sparge water, and let it sit until it cools to 168f
Last edited:
cuz 5 gallns fills the left bay in my two bay sink nicely and covers objects i put in there
For starsan I use a 1/4 bbl keg full that I use for everything purging kegs and a picnic tap fir dispensing to a spray bottle, it lasts months. I just got a mill so bulk grain is in my future. I motorized it with the motor and gear reduction from my mom's old garage door opener that the electronics went out. The only thing I bought besides the mill is a $6 sprocket and gas for the chainsaw to mill the lumber to mount everything on.
I also use the outflow from the chiller to fill the washing machine.
Also Walmart has a sleeping bag for $15 that works well for as a fermenter blanket.
I also use the outflow from the chiller to fill the washing machine.
Also Walmart has a sleeping bag for $15 that works well for as a fermenter blanket.
Last edited:
jayrome2722
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2015
- Messages
- 37
- Reaction score
- 20
I transfer hot water from place to place now with just a siphon tube after warping two auto siphons. I only got a mouthful of 180 degree water and lost all taste for a week one time, so, totally worth it.
I also pieced together a hop spider using a 2 inch length of PVC pipe, metal skewers and a paint straining bag, all of which I had on hand.
I also pieced together a hop spider using a 2 inch length of PVC pipe, metal skewers and a paint straining bag, all of which I had on hand.
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
ok lets put it this way . a 30 pack of Nattys is what ,like about $12 on sale? drink half of one and pour the rest down the drain...
wait...nevermind.
I understand now.
(the previous statement was written totally as a joke to lighten the air with extreme sarcasm...please do not take personally. )
