"you won't save money homebrewing"

[devilssoninlaw]

I had a guy tell me today that I wouldn't save any money by home brewing, that it's more of a hobby.

At first I thought he may be right and then I thought that if it's kept pretty simple, I would be saving some dough.

Most "good beer" here runs about $10 a 6 pack ....if a 5 gallon kit runs $35 to $40 and up and I can get 2 cases, I would be saving some and having fun too!

 

[Iseneye]

Depending on how you brew, and bulk buying ingredients you can probably save money. However, once you start adding up brewing gear I don't see it being any cheaper (in my case). Kettles, kegs, fermenters, burners / electric, CO2, kegerator, and a whole bunch of other stuff means, for me, that it is not cheaper. However, I brew beer that is far better suited to my tastes than any packaged craft beer so doesn't worry me.

When I did BIAB and bottling it was cheaper.

 

[Phunhog]

I save money. All grain and buy grain and hops in bulk. After figuring in all my costs I am around 40-50 cents per beer.

 

[Phunhog]

Depending on how you brew, and bulk buying ingredients you can probably save money. However, once you start adding up brewing gear I don't see it being any cheaper (in my case). Kettles, kegs, fermenters, burners / electric, CO2, kegerator, and a whole bunch of other stuff means, for me, that it is not cheaper. However, I brew beer that is far better suited to my tastes than any packaged craft beer so doesn't worry me.

When I did BIAB and bottling it was cheaper.

You are looking at it all wrong. Do you eat out or get food to go every meal? Think of how much you would save on kitchen appliances and accessories if you never cooked. I see all my Brewing equipment as an extension of my kitchen. It’s almost always cheaper to prepare a solid home cooked meal. Same with beer.

 

[Sadu]

Yeah it depends on a bunch of stuff really.

If you can buy the starter kits and make ok beer with them and resist the temptation to fall into the endless pit, you can totally save money.

That's not how it worked out for me. I totally fell into the endless pit. I started caring about how beer tasted (this was never an issue previously) and changed my goals from wanting cheap beer to wanting great beer. I love the hobby and wouldn't change anything, but I'm not saving money yet after 2 years. I'll break even in a year or so I guess, since I don't really need to buy any more hardware at this point and my ingredient costs are rock bottom.

My advice is to go for it. It's not that hard to make ok-tasting pretty-cheap beer using the basic kits (which require hardly any gear).

If you want amazing-tasting super-cheap beer (which is what many of us enjoy) that's also totally possible, but it requires more time and investment up front. Nothing wrong with that, but don't expect to save money on that journey.

 

[palealerunner]

To make the cheapest great tasting beer (that I can make) in the UK it costs;
£12 for the grain
£12 for the hops
£2 for 1kg brewers sugar

Additionally
Fermentation bucket cost £10 each- I have two 23l buckets.
BIAB grain bag - £6
My kettle is a 20l stainless steel pan that I originally bought to boil our Christmas gammon (ham joint)
The rest of my gear was my late dads.
Ignoring
I’ve built up a massive collection of beer bottles over the year and they get reused. Sterilising tablets cost £4 for 40.

With the ingredients above I can make 32l of 4.5% hop forward IPA.
That works out at 40p per 500ml bottle.

With the style of beer I make it would cost £3 for one 440ml can or for a lesser bought beer 4 500ml bottles for £6.

So I’m quids in

 

[divrack]

well I guess that depends on how much and what you drink.
personally it saves me enough to pay off my truck, but then I have expensive tastes..

 

[PADave]

If you only look at ingredients, then yes, you will save money. Factor in equipment and time, no way. All depends on how you look at things.

 

[madscientist451]

I can work all the overtime I want and can afford to buy whatever beer I want . But I'd rather be at home brewing than be at work.
What people value is not always about money.

 

[Pkrd]

Moderators please delete this before our wives see it.

My homebrew gear takes up enough room in the shed for about 5k worth of bicycles. I'm saving a ton.

 

[Sparkncode]

I classed the making my eherms a (making/building/electronics) hobby expense...

Totally separate from brewing expense because i had fun making it. Basically an entertainment expense lol.

Realistically an all grain brew is pretty cheap but my time is worth quite a bit etc but i actually enjoy a day of completely non work related stuff.

It is possible to save on beer even if you drink more but really if you put enough time into it to make great beer and learning + equipment you won't save money because you get hooked on making improvments.
Definitly a hobby for me that has a benefit of an over supply of good beer.

Ooooh look stainless conical fermentor... sadly that must wait as my house renovation hobby has dibs on the hobby money for another year.

 

[DownstairsBrewing]

To make the cheapest great tasting beer (that I can make) in the UK it costs;
£12 for the grain
£12 for the hops
£2 for 1kg brewers sugar

Additionally
Fermentation bucket cost £10 each- I have two 23l buckets.
BIAB grain bag - £6
My kettle is a 20l stainless steel pan that I originally bought to boil our Christmas gammon (ham joint)
The rest of my gear was my late dads.
Ignoring
I’ve built up a massive collection of beer bottles over the year and they get reused. Sterilising tablets cost £4 for 40.

With the ingredients above I can make 32l of 4.5% hop forward IPA.
That works out at 40p per 500ml bottle.

With the style of beer I make it would cost £3 for one 440ml can or for a lesser bought beer 4 500ml bottles for £6.

So I’m quids in

At US prices for beer, there is something to this thread. At Canadian prices ($3/500 ml for a craft beer), it forces some honesty about how you are really saving, but ingredients alone there is a savings. At UK prices, the payback on the equipment has to be about two batches.

 

[Dland]

In brewing materials vs store bought beer, I save a around $3K per year over the higher end beer I used to drink. The cost of equipment does not have to be high if you are able to modify/fabricate it. I did buy my conicals used, and had lot of C kegs left over from a previous life, (stored on rotted pallets in the woods for 30 years, they all had to be refurbished). But with all the other gear, the I figured my equipment investment has been pretty much paid off in a year, even including a new 12 keg freezer I lager in.

If I figured in my time at what I charge per hour at work, it would be a loss several thousand dollars. However, I brew on my day off, and enjoy making beer a lot more than running my business, and the beer I make is very good and the way I like it. In fact, my old "daily driver" imported beer tastes like crap to me now, hopelessly stale. And with only one exception, all the local craft beers available around here are over hopped IPAs that seem to be trending with the young craft brewers, and are more expensive than most high end imports.

 

[augiedoggy]

12 packs of "craft" beers run between $15 and $24 here in the buffalo area... the fresher local stuff is usually only sold in 4 or maybe 6 packs for $9-12... yeah its much cheaper to brew your own especially if you want options as the craft beer market seems to be selling out going very commercial and catering to the "hottest trending" or best selling beer style amongst craft beer drinkers which is IPA or some variant of it... Took me ten minutes to decide on a twelve pack the other day when looking for a variety pack that had something other than multiple forms of ipas. Right now its just shandys and ipas... What happen to variety! it seems the craft brewing market is being steered towards a style thats easy to brew (you can cover up most mistakes and poor ingredients with more hops and fake flavors which is becoming the norm) question is, Is it really the consumer doing the steering or the brewing market via social influence?
With all normally non alcoholic stuff being sold spiked like the hard soda and even artificial cigarette vap juice marketing towards things kids like (bubble gum? really) its scary to think about where it will go.

 

[cactusgarrett]

When a bottle of my favorite Schlenkerla here cost more than $5 for 12oz, and I'm paying $30 for ingredients to make a clone of it at 50x that volume... yeah, I'm saving money ($0.42/oz versus $0.05/oz).

 

[jack13]

I've done 69 brews and have kept track of every penny I've spent and every bottle I've bottled (and I when I switched to kegging, I call a corny keg 53 bottles). I focus on bottles because the most intuitive comparison for me to make is how much I spend per 6 pack at the store vs. how much a 6 pack costs me to brew myself. Now to clarify, saving money by doing this is not remotely a motivating factor (It would be way too much work if I looked at it as work!). It's just kinda fun to keep track.

As people have said, the cost of brewing can vary quite a bit based on how you do it, so here are a few facts that should give a sense of where I fall along that spectrum:

-I do not buy in bulk even though I could save $ in doing so. The only reason for that is to support my LHBS.
-Do 5 gallon batches
-Have two chest freezers for fermenting
-Have a 4-tap keezer
-Re-use yeast about half the time
-Brew on a turkey fryer type burner in a bayou classic 10 gallon pot. Mash in a 10 gallon cooler.

Right now I'm at $9.88 per six pack. If I spend, say, $30 on my next brew, that'll go down to $9.77...but of course will go up next time I need some tubing or something. That number has dipped as low as $8.50 or so.

In any case, a few years ago I figured out I spent an average of $11.50 per six pack for commercial beer. Based on that, I reckon I've saved $894 over the years.

Hmm...let me take it to the next level...if I figure an average of 7 hours per brew (that includes not just the brew day itself, but all the ancillary activities), that's 69 x 7 = 483 hours spent brewing. Hey, I'm making $1.85 every hour I engage in homebrewing activities!

Yeah, I'm kidding about that last part. And I'm sure if I were to keep track of how much I've given away to friends and family, I'd be in the negative. But even so, I can certainly say it's an inexpensive hobby.

 

[devilssoninlaw]

Moderators please delete this before our wives see it.

My homebrew gear takes up enough room in the shed for about 5k worth of bicycles. I'm saving a ton.

hahaha

 

[devilssoninlaw]

Thanks for the input, gentlemen!! It's interesting to see the different perspectives!

 

[cubalz]

When I factor in the cost of my custom brew room, brew panel and on and on I will be in the red until I die of old age. But seriously, what got me into home brewing was the ability to brew what I like and the "zen-ness" of it all. That is what has kept it exciting for me even after 27 years of doing it.

 

[mongoose33]

When did the basis for homebrewing become saving money?

I used to be an avid golfer--until back issues intervened. I can't ever remember saving ANY money golfing. So why should saving money be the defining metric in homebrewing? Are there other benefits to the process?

In most cases where I'm in a taproom trying to find something I would like, I keep thinking I'd rather have a pint of my own homebrew.

**********

There is an element of golf for some people which translates to brewing; there is a certain sort of pacing, tempo, release from everyday life, Zen, whatever you want to call it. In golf, to a large extent, you are in control of what happens. So, too, with brewing.

Brewing for brewing's sake is expressive, in that we're being creative, much like we can be as we wend our way around a golf course.

Brewing for saving money is instrumental, a very goal-oriented enterprise where process is only a means to an end. But brewing for expressive sake? It's the end in itself. A lot of brewers have indicated they just LIKE brewing. It's fun, it's creative, we take a bunch of disparate ingredients, wave our magic wand over them, and voila! A magical transformation is the result.

Saving money? Bah. It's nice that I do from batch to batch, but if time and money efficiency were the only goals, I'd get a part-time job to pay for my beer.

***********

In March I bought a Spike conical. I don't even want to say what I have into it, but it's more than most people would pay for a premium set of golf clubs.

But I see people spending $1000 or even $1500 on that set of golf clubs. So what's the difference between that, and my conical, if in both cases the expenditure makes the purchaser happy?

 

[Clef051]

I save money doing it. I buy grain in bulk as much as possible, hops by the pound. I reuse yeast. My last NE IPA cost me around $65 for 10 gallons, most in that style cost $5-7 a can. I brewed a imperial stout for about $60. Yeah there is equipment costs, but my system is fairly cheap and i haven't had to buy anything in awhile. I have maybe $600-700 in equipment/kegging supplies. that I've been using for over 5 years. other then that it is just propane and co2 once in a while.

That isn't counting the enjoyment i get from home brewing either

 

[user 254557]

Im in the same boat that allot of other homebrewers, its the hobby that really is the fun part, its all of the different things that can be done with a simple grain bill, I havent added it up but after all of the equipment and kegerator and 5 or 6 kegs, hundreds of bottles for competitions or giveaways, growlers, and the cabinets full of stuff, the loss of $ is probably the biggest at the equipment that I have upgraded from, right now I have two kegs that I have converted to electric recirculating system with a 12V Bayite pump, but in the years leading up to this it is the 3 breweries worth of other equipment that rest in storage not being used that in the past were the upgrade but now are kettles and coolers and burners that have hundreds tied up into them but sit.

Its a hobby that really enjoy, and like many others have said, I dont figure a monetary value into that

 

[fredthecat]

people are stupid.

you could have a good but simple beer for 20 cents a 330ml homebrewed.

 

[stosh]

But seriously, what got me into home brewing was the ability to brew what I like and the "zen-ness" of it all.

This is one of the big reasons I like to brew. I have a high stress job and when I know I'm going to brew stress goes down considerably. Also for me brewing with friends, family or just me and my 3 year old son relieves stress and I love being with those who are closest to me.

I can work all the overtime I want and can afford to buy whatever beer I want . But I'd rather be at home brewing than be at work.
What people value is not always about money.

Agree 1000%. Like they say a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. Besides what knucklehead thought a 5 day work week was a good idea?

I never got into brewing thinking I would/could save money. I have always thrown myself full force into the things I'm passionate about. No different here. I have spent a good chunk of dough on ingredients, equip, etc. Most of the equip I buy is used to cut cost. It's like all the other things I've been involved in through my life: playing hockey, drag racing/sprint cars/USAC midgets/stock cars, snowmobiling, fishing (muskie fishing especially), the shooting sports, reloading, smoking/making sausage/bbqing, hot rods, the list goes on.

My whole life I've wanted to brew and now I'm doing it. I have great people around me, a beautiful family, recently moved to a community that best fits us as a family (think rural, farm tractors driving up/down the street during planting/harvesting, unincorporated, turkeys walking thru the backyard, great horned owls, deer, etc).

In most cases where I'm in a taproom trying to find something I would like, I keep thinking I'd rather have a pint of my own homebrew.

Hallelujah brother! I get to make beer I like, experiment, make session beers, hi grav stuff I can age a bit, try to clone stuff I like. What a great hobby...

 

[ProblemChild]

my response -

OK - AND?

 

[JDXX1971]

I was just thinking about this last night as I enjoyed my 10+% bourbon chocolate stout. Comparable beers seem to go for at least 50 cents an ounce to well over a dollar an ounce. Mine cost me under a quarter an ounce to make, so the savings are pretty huge there. I figure it will only take a few batches at those figures to break even on my equipment, so yeah I am eventually gonna be saving!

 

[itsnotrequired]

I've done 69 brews and have kept track of every penny I've spent and every bottle I've bottled (and I when I switched to kegging, I call a corny keg 53 bottles). I focus on bottles because the most intuitive comparison for me to make is how much I spend per 6 pack at the store vs. how much a 6 pack costs me to brew myself. Now to clarify, saving money by doing this is not remotely a motivating factor (It would be way too much work if I looked at it as work!). It's just kinda fun to keep track.

As people have said, the cost of brewing can vary quite a bit based on how you do it, so here are a few facts that should give a sense of where I fall along that spectrum:

-I do not buy in bulk even though I could save $ in doing so. The only reason for that is to support my LHBS.
-Do 5 gallon batches
-Have two chest freezers for fermenting
-Have a 4-tap keezer
-Re-use yeast about half the time
-Brew on a turkey fryer type burner in a bayou classic 10 gallon pot. Mash in a 10 gallon cooler.

Right now I'm at $9.88 per six pack. If I spend, say, $30 on my next brew, that'll go down to $9.77...but of course will go up next time I need some tubing or something. That number has dipped as low as $8.50 or so.

In any case, a few years ago I figured out I spent an average of $11.50 per six pack for commercial beer. Based on that, I reckon I've saved $894 over the years.

Hmm...let me take it to the next level...if I figure an average of 7 hours per brew (that includes not just the brew day itself, but all the ancillary activities), that's 69 x 7 = 483 hours spent brewing. Hey, I'm making $1.85 every hour I engage in homebrewing activities!

Yeah, I'm kidding about that last part. And I'm sure if I were to keep track of how much I've given away to friends and family, I'd be in the negative. But even so, I can certainly say it's an inexpensive hobby.

i've also tracked all my brewing expenses from the beginning. this includes the brew system, ingredients, keezer, kegs, brewing salts, you name it, even down to 'support' materials like dairy board for the brew area walls. just kegged my 32nd 10-gal batch so sitting at 320 gal total. that puts me in the very crappy $27/six pack range, factoring equipment costs. i guess that's what i get for having a conical, glycol chiller, 6-tap keezer, etc. of course, that value decreases with every additional brew, as i am not buying brew kettles, conicals, etc. on a regular basis. fast forward twelve brews into the future (about what i do in a year) and that value is more like $20/six pack. two years out and something like $17/six pack. and so on...

if i only look at ingredient costs, it is much better, only about $3/six pack. that cost includes several pounds of hops in my freezer that i haven't even used yet but there is some electricity and water costs that aren't factored in there, probably evens out. that $3/six pack value looks even better considering some of the higher gravity brews i have made (e.g. 9.2% ris, 11.6% barleywine, etc.) and crazy-hopped ipas.

of course, not doing this to save money but i never really looked at the finances before, kind of interesting.

 

[DownstairsBrewing]

I am fairly diligent about costing, probably an occupational hazard. I actually use three different suppliers, and have a 'best price' spreadsheet. My last 23L batch could have been down to under $20 in ingredients, but at some point it is not worth the trip - the actual ended up being $23 something.

Of course, the reason I do this is because I can then rationalize incremental equipment purchases. That batch will produce ~46 500 mL 'cans' valued at $138 total, so a net of $115 to the equipment budget....

 

[Smellyglove]

If someone would tell me that "you won't save money homebrewing" I'd say to them that they are absolutely right. I have a hobby and invest how much or little I feel like investing in it when it comes to expenses and time. Those who want to homebrew to save money can do it, but that's not my personal intention.

My last batch cost me about $0.82 pr 0.5L in ingredients, and I live in a high cost country. If I'd sum up the equipment then the figure would be closer to $150 pr 0.5L.

 

[Braufessor]

Bulk Grain, Bulk Hops, Reuse Yeast - I can brew any "normal" beer for $15-$25 per 5 gallons pretty easily. So, once I get past the $10,000+ worth of equipment I have likely purchased..... I can brew beer for 50 cents a pint