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Oyarsa

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My wife got me a one gallon kit from Amazon. It cost around $26. That's rather expensive, even assuming I get a gallon out of it. About 2.60 per 12 ounces.

A 5 gallon kit costs around $40. That's much better. About 80 cents per 12 oz., but only if you already have bottles.

If I were to buy my own ingredients rather than a kit, would it be much cheaper? It looks like LME is about $10 per 3.3 lbs. That would be $40 just for the malt extract in a recipe I was looking at (https://blog.eckraus.com/russian-imperial-stout-recipe-extract), if I understand correctly. Is this because it's a high ABV and therefore requires more malt?

All this compared to fairly cheap prices for beer of about $1.50 per bottle for local craft brews...

This is, of course, a hobby, but my wife and I are really trying to be frugal and I mainly just want a cheap evening libation I enjoy :)

Any thoughts on the economics of kit vs buying your own ingredients or how to minimize cost?
 
It all depends on the recipe. If you brew a 5-gallon recipe that is lower ethanol content, and a limited hop bill, then it'll be much cheaper than a high-gravity, hoppy type of beer.

If you really want to save money per bottle, you have to go all-grain. But that takes some investment up front, and your grain costs come down when you buy in bulk.

If I brew a California Common, on my system, it takes 9# of 2-row malt (70 cents/lb), 1.75# of Munich malt (88 cents/lb), and 1.1# of Crystal 60L ($1.06/lb). There are 3 ounces of Northern Brewer hops in there ($1.39/ounce). Plus a tube of liquid White Labs yeast ($6.50). That totals $19.68. A 5-gallon batch produces about 50 bottles, so that's just under 40 cents per bottle.

I just brewed a hazy IPA; similar cost of the grain bill, but I have 9 ounces of hops in it. And those weren't all as cheap as the Northern Brewer. I probably have closer to $35 in that one.

Doing it with extract is generally more expensive, but like all rules there are exceptions. It also matters where you buy things. I'm relatively close to Ritebrew, and get a lot of my stuff there. Buying elsewhere can greatly increase prices. I also can get things picked up at Ritebrew, so my shipping costs are nil.

You WILL find it cheaper to brew larger batches as a general rule. Unless it's an ingredient-heavy recipe, you should be able to be in the $30-35 range for most recipes with extract, which puts you at 60-70 cents per bottle.

I haven't included the cost of heating, nor bottle caps, nor cleaner nor sanitizer. That will add a little to each batch.

*******

In the end, the beauty of this--one of them, anyway--is that you can brew exactly what you want. I have five beers on tap and they're better than anything I can get at the local watering hole. At least in my opinion--and mine is the only one that counts.

It's a bonus that it's cheaper.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I guess I should look at other recipes to start my adventure, then, or stick to kits.

Is dry extract cheaper than liquid?
 
Buying the ingredients instead of a kit seems to be a little cheaper. Also if your spending that much for ingredients you might want to look at something a little bit easier for your first batch. For your first batch a Russian Imperial Stout might be tricky. It will be cheaper also to do a larger batch and more time efficient as well.
 
Bottles are fairly easy to acquire... if you have friends or family that drink beer in bottles with crown tops (not twist off) just ask them to save them for you. New bottles can be purchased fairly cheaply also (about $13/case for 12oz) and if you don't give any away or break any, you'll have them forever. Dry extract is typically a little more expensive but you use less of it than liquid to get equal gravities. Personally I have noticed most kits are cheaper than buying ingredients separately since everything you need is included and there isn't anything leftover (some don't include yeast). There are a lot of online homebrew supply companies that have excellent selections of kits for every style.


Edit: spelling
 
Oyarsa said:
Thanks for the reply.

I guess I should look at other recipes to start my adventure, then, or stick to kits.
Click to expand...

I'm a believer in new brewers doing simpler recipes while they figure out the process of brewing. Then move toward the more complicated ones if that's how your taste goes.

There's nothing wrong with kits; the nice thing especially for new brewers is that you know you should get good beer if the process is correct, because the ingredient choices are already made for you. Most kits will come with a list of ingredients, which you can, if you find a kit you like, alter a bit here or there to see what happens.

Both Northern Brewer and MoreBeer have instructions and ingredient lists online. I'm sure others do, too. And they'll have kits often with a combination of both DME and LME.

Is dry extract cheaper than liquid?
Click to expand...

They're really not that different. You might expect 1 pound of liquid extract to be equal to about .8 pounds of dried malt extract. So if LME is cheaper than DME (which it generally is by the pound), but you need more of it to be equal to DME, then you haven't saved much if any money.
 
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Midwest supplies has a series of beer kits called “beer simply beer” and they are all $22.99. If price point is your goal then that might help.
 
I started brewing in college, when funds were very tight. The original goal was to brew beer the same price I could get Busch Light, but get better quality. I started with a brew bucket, borrowed a big pot from a friend, and made some "beer" with LME. I usually, for light gravity beers, had less than $40 in it, but only a little bit less, which was the same price I could get two cases of Busch.

But not all of them ended up tasting good. Some tasted horrible. We drank them anyway, because I was in college, but some were a struggle. I once gave a homebrew to my then gf, now wife, super proud at the fact that I made it. She has no filter, took a sip, and her face twisted as she exclaimed "It tastes like paint thinner!" We still laugh about it years later, often over a much better homebrew.

Now, years later, I can make the exact beer I want. I now do all grain, buy in bulk, and re-use yeast. I can sometimes get a 5 gallon batch done for less than $20. And it's good beer (to me, at least). Way better than the $9.99 for a six pack I can get at the grocery store.

But the costs really add up over time. A kettle, a burner, a fermentation chamber, carboys, siphons, gadgets, cleaning supplies . . . . if I added it all up and averaged it out over the number of beers I brewed, I'd probably be right back at that $10 six pack in price. But each beer I brew from here drops that average down (assuming I don't get new equipment, which I do).

The point is, if you're comparing to the cost you can buy beer, in the short run you can probably bet it in price, but it won't be great beer. In the mid run you'll lose money on it (assuming you upgrade your equipment). But in the long run, you'll save a ton of money and get better beer. But you have to be in it for the long run, realize you'll be dropping some good coin on stuff and getting some crap beer for a while.

Many don't stick it out that long. They drink crap beer for a while, then get bored (or discouraged) and quit. Those people would be better off buying six packs.
 
i would point out that you should decide if you want to go full bore and get yourself a decent brewing setup as soon as possible. black friday is soon upon us, and you're not going to get better deals than what's coming up in two weeks.

so if you guys are trying to be frugal, do some shopping right now for a basic setup and see what's in the budget.

also dont be afraid to get used gear. and i would always say kegs are better than bottles. used kegs arent that expensive. and a small co2 tank isnt either if you troll craigslist or find it used somewhere. it is more of an investment, so i guess that depends on just how "frugal" you are trying to be.
 
SanPancho said:
i would point out that you should decide if you want to go full bore and get yourself a decent brewing setup as soon as possible. black friday is soon upon us, and you're not going to get better deals than what's coming up in two weeks.

so if you guys are trying to be frugal, do some shopping right now for a basic setup and see what's in the budget.

also dont be afraid to get used gear. and i would always say kegs are better than bottles. used kegs arent that expensive. and a small co2 tank isnt either if you troll craigslist or find it used somewhere. it is more of an investment, so i guess that depends on just how "frugal" you are trying to be.
Click to expand...

Spend some time, too, on Craigslist. In my area, you can score some terrific equipment for very reasonable prices.

The problem for new brewers, of course, is that they don't know what, exactly, they're going to want and need. One of my bigger....regrets, I suppose, is that I bought under what I'd eventually wanted to get. I wish I hadn't sunk money into things I'd eventually replace.

Not sure how you figure that out. One has to decide if one wants to continue brewing, and the degree to which you'd like to devote your time to this. Some brew for years on simple setups, others...well, they put a lot of money into it.

But check out Craigslist. I wish I were starting over, knowing what I now know. I'd get a setup for half price.
 
Recipe kits go on sale regularly from major online shops, such as MoreBeer. If you get your order total above $59 shipping is free, so that's even more saved. Extract kits tends to cost more than all grain, but shipping of all grain can be more expensive (heavier and bulkier).

Take a gander:
https://www.morebeer.com/category/beer-recipe-kits.html?fc_1089=Extract&page=1&sort=price

Stronger or hoppier beers take more ingredients, so expect to pay some extra.

Sometimes you can piecemeal a recipe from loose ingredients at a lower price than a recipe kit, but you rarely see large price breaks or discounts on loose ingredients like you see on kits at times. A friend ordered 4, 5-gallon (all grain) kits from MoreBeer a few days ago, altogether for $62 and thus free shipping. That's a pretty good deal at $15.50 per, as most of those kits he got include 6 oz of IPA hops each. At my local shop I'd have to pay around $15-18 for just 6 oz of those hops ($2.50-3.00 per oz), without the grain.

I buy hops in bulk (pounds) from online hop vendors, and store them in the freezer.
 
I buy grain and hops in bulk and can brew a low hop beer for $.25-.50 for 12 oz.
Hoppy IPAs are higher, but still way less than $10-$12 average commercial brews at the store have been costing lately.
Kits are expensive, unless you can get them on sale. One online seller had them 50% off for Halloween, so get on as many mailing lists as you can.
 
Oyarsa said:
My wife got me a one gallon kit from Amazon. It cost around $26. That's rather expensive
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's surely pricey for a gallon. You can do a lot better by shopping around.
Amazon is good for many things, but not everything. I'd look at online homebrew retailers such as MoreBeer since they offer free shipping.

Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies also offer free shipping, but were bought out by AB InBev a few years ago, so there's an issue not everyone can live with.
 
Since you are just starting I will not recommend all-grain, or bulk grain, or hops in bulk, but if you get into the hobby in a big way and are prepared to buy ingredients in bulk, you can make an excellent hoppy Pale ale for less than 30 cents a bottle.

If you want to keep it simple, keep an eye on Northern Brewer for sale (other stores may also have decent sales). A few weeks ago I bought 4 kits from Northern Brewer for $15 each (5 gallons per kit), with free shipping. I just bought them because it was a cheap way to get extract and hops, I split the kits up, but it is a great price for 5 gallons of 5% Pale Ale. There may be something going on at Thanksgiving/Black Friday. Just keep watching for sales.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions! I'll start watching those websites for sales for beer. $15 isn't bad at all!

In the meantime I'll work on my ciders. It seems cider and possibly wine is a good bit cheaper.
 
Definitely craigslist. Ive gotten a co2 tank for super cheap, corny kegs super cheap, even a stainless chiller coil, carboy, bottle cap tool and a ton of other gear for free from a guy who was moving cross country. Cant beat that.
 
I do kits as well. Done 2 beer kits getting ready for the third. Generally its about the same price to buy the kit as it is to get all malts and grains and hops. My local shop sells them with a discount on them to make up for shipping costs so I get a break that way. The Imperial is a big beer and thats why that beer costs so much per 12oz bottle. Most kits only have 5-6 lbs of DME and LME combined plus specialty grains and hops then if your lucky yeast. I also dont plan on going full grain for a few years so soon Ill start buying more hops to store for recipes to help saving on money. Im in the same boat you are as far as being frugal goes.

and welcome to the hobby its fun and rewarding to drink a beer you made
 
Buying in bulk can be a money saver, but be careful about freshness. LME doesn't store well - I try to buy only what I will use in 3 - 4 months. Hops can be stored for a while, but they need to be protected from oxygen and kept cold, preferably in the freezer.
 
Yeah it depends on the ingredients. Certain hops are more expensive than others. Liquid yeast is more expensive than dry yeast. Extract is more expensive than grains. Some grains are more expensive than others. Buying 50 lb sacks of grain and crushing them yourself is less expensive than buying pre-crushed grains in smaller increments like I do.

For equipment monitoring craigslist is a good idea, you get lucky sometimes. You can find relatively inexpensive stuff via online retailers too though. I bought my (used)kegs and kegging equipment online for pretty cheap(kegconnections.com and adventures in homebrewing). What I bought my used cornies for is same price I usually see on craiglist. Rather buy from a retailer though because they usually pressure test it. I bought a used 10 lb CO2 tank from adventures in homebrewing, but found a 5 lb on craigslist. I also found a really cheap chest freezer on craigslist, but bought my first one new because Home Depot had a great sale.

For ingredients I bought some hops from Hopsdirect in 1 lb increments when I first started. Really good deal if you want to buy in bulk although be careful about ordering too much. They do keep in the freezer pretty well but will degrade over time especially if you're not vacuum sealing(I'm not). I also like MoreBeer for ordering supplies/ingredients. Great customer service and free shipping at $59. Midwest Supplies has free shipping at $30 and some good deals. I think some people avoid them because they're now owned by InBev but I like the lower free shipping threshold. I don't always feel like spending $60 per order. I also think they crush their grains a little better than MoreBeer. I've been to a LHBS near me a couple times but honestly not a big fan of that place, so I tend to order my ingredients online more often than not.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I live close to YakimaValley Hops. So far I've only been in to look for supplies, which is a bit lacking and disorganized. This weekend I'll scope out ingredient prices. That and Ace Hardware are the only places I know in town that sell ingredients...

But I think I'll stick with kits till I'm more sure of myself...
 
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Stick with the kits. Get the process down. Then maybe make the kits with steeping grains. Then its a short leap to BIAB all grain. I still order one recipe at a time from Ritebrew, as I have no way to store the 6-8 types of grains I want to use for the 3-4 recipes I make regularly.

Get your process down first. Make some messes. (Go right ahead a try not to, but it'll happen anyway). This is a hobby, at least to me.
 
I've only been doing this since June and have all of 6 batches under my belt, but in that time I've noticed that Northern Brewer and Morebeer run actual good sales ALL the time. To the point where I pretty much wouldn't pay full price for anything on their sites.

Example, I was about to buy my first real brew kettle; a Megapot 1.2 10gal... I think it was going to be about $160, and then they sent a sale code in email for some nice percent off any single item; I think it ended up being $40 off. And that is legit too, cross shopping on Amazon, the asking price there is the same as the normal retail asking price on NB/MB.

Kits: Bought several on the 50% off Halloween sale from MB. They were $17-$19 each delivered.

On kits, in my experience so far, MoreBeer is better deal than Northern Brewer, and I've bought from both. My reasons: MB includes priming sugar, which is +2$ from NB. Also the grains come in sealed bags, which I suspect will hold freshness longer than NB's non-sealed pre-mixed grain packaging. Not that I wouldn't buy from NB, but I'd wait for a good sale and plan to brew it pretty quickly.

If I were planning on buying any item of any real expense from either; I'd just wait five minutes until they email out another "20% off anything" coupon... they do it ALL the time.
 
Thanks, DVCNick. I was surprised when I went on the MoreBeer website. I think I will follow your example. $15-20 isn't bad for 5 gallons and their free shipping limit isn't bad, either.
 
Well it is still more than that once you add in everything... here is the cost breakdown I worked up on my last batch (kit wasn't on sale):

Kit $28.99
Yeast/Starter DME $9.00
Bottle Caps $1.60
Propane $7.00
Misc (stuff like yeast nutrient, cleaners, O2,etc... guess) $2.00

Total: $48.59

#Beers Yield: 50
Cost/beer $0.97
Cost/6 pack $5.83

Notice the priming sugar was included in that kit.
Places I'll eventually look to pull cost out:

-Only buy kits on sale, or buy bulk ingredients for cheaper.

-Bottle cap and priming sugar cost will go away with kegging, but I don't know if that will be more than CO2 cost... will have to do that math when the time comes.

-Gas: My water heater is right out next to where I'm brewing anyway. If I could tap the gas line there and get a stowable soft hose, I could run the burner off my far cheaper natural gas supply, and not swap propane tanks every 3-4 batches to the tune of $20/each...
 
I would suggest starting with simple kits. Pale ales and the like. A Russian Imperial Stout is a forgiving beer as to malt flavors masking procedure induced off flavors. But it is a big beer and really should be aged for a long time before drinking. It's ingredients will also be much more expensive than a pale ale.

You will not be saving ANY money over commercial beers for a while until you gather all the equipment you need for brewing.

IMO, you probably won't be able to beat commercial without progressing to all grain and buying in bulk, re-using yeast, and other cost cutting measures.

But keep at it, once you get to a certain point you will be making beers better and probably cheaper than commercial craft beers.

That is, until you decide that you want that 20 gallon all electric 3 vessel herms rig in your new dedicated brew room.
 
Also don't forget when pricing how much you are spending on ingredients don't compare to large commercial breweries. Compare to craft beer pricing because you are not trying to make cheap massconsumer beer but a beer crafted to your tastes
 
I've been brewing with extract lately, and my 5 - 6% ABV beer has been costing about 70 cents per 12 oz bottle, including ingredients, caps, electricity, sanitizer, etc. Fresh, dry yeast for each batch. Equipment paid for itself in less than a year, based on buying craft beer as the alternative. You can brew cheaper with all-grain, but it would take a while to pay back the equipment cost. I still recommend all-grain, because the mash is magic.
 
ncbrewer said:
Buying in bulk can be a money saver, but be careful about freshness. LME doesn't store well - I try to buy only what I will use in 3 - 4 months. Hops can be stored for a while, but they need to be protected from oxygen and kept cold, preferably in the freezer.
Click to expand...

Speaking of extract, I've had a sealed 3lb container of wheat LME for about two years now. It's been well-hidden in the refrigerator the whole time.
You Know Who ... well, she recently found it and asked what it was. Caramel malt is one of her favorite Asian cooking ingredients.
I don't do extract or partial mash much anymore, so I guess she can have it. :rolleyes:
 
The easiest ways are (as said) bulk purchasing (hops especially go WAY down bought by the pound than the ounce), and repitching yeast, especially with liquid yeast. I've made many beers at home costing less than $10 for 5 gallons.

Beyond that, some regions do regular "group buys" where a group of homebrewers will coordinate buying and splitting up commercial quantities and piggyback on with a commercial brewery in one of their orders. That's the absolute cheapest way, but needs enough people, a willing brewery, and a fair bit of coordination. There's long running organized group buys on here.
 
Oyarsa said:
My wife

.....

how to minimize cost?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you run the numbers you'll find that hiring a maid, cook, etc for a few hours a week to clean works out cheaper but some of the things your wife does have benefits that are hard to put a dollar figure on.

RDWHAHB
 
passedpawn said:
Here's an article on the subject. In it, the author (me :)) suggests that you'll need to brew with grain (i.e., do a mash) in order to really save money.
Click to expand...

I agree grain is cheaper than extract, but you can find LME for $2/lb, and DME for $2.50/lb. Buying extract in bulk can save a lot of money too.

7 lbs of LME ($14) in 5 gallons will give you a 1.050 wort, or ~5% beer. Re-use yeast, add a little crystal, and bulk buy hops, and you can have a 5%+ Pale Ale for less than 40 cents a bottle.
 
ncbrewer said:
I've been brewing with extract lately, and my 5 - 6% ABV beer has been costing about 70 cents per 12 oz bottle, including ingredients, caps, electricity, sanitizer, etc. Fresh, dry yeast for each batch. Equipment paid for itself in less than a year, based on buying craft beer as the alternative. You can brew cheaper with all-grain, but it would take a while to pay back the equipment cost. I still recommend all-grain, because the mash is magic.
Click to expand...

Not long at all if you can restrain yourself from buying more equipment than needed. Using the pot I already had and adding just a Corona mill and a paint strainer bag I brew 2 1/2 gallon batches. While that is half the size of batches that most will make that allows me to brew more often and have more variety to drink.
 
ncbrewer said:
That's a really good price for extract. Is $2/lb a bulk price? If not, what is your source?
Click to expand...

I used to buy 33 lb packs of Briess LME from my LHBS for something like $60. Plus tax, that is worked out at about $2 per lb.

But I have found it easier to buy extract on-line when some of the stores have sales (and it is fresher). I recently bought 4 kits from Northern Brewer of $60 (shipped) during one of their sales.

I think each kit had something like:
- 6 bs LME (Pilsner)
- 1 lb DME (Pilsner)
- 1 lb crushed grain (Crystal C40)
- 3 ozs Chinook hops.

So for $60 I got 24 lbs LME, 4 lbs of DME ..... that is roughly $2 for LME (a little more for DME since it has more sugars). And if I use the $2 for LME as the basis, I got 4 lbs of grain and 12 ozs of hops free.

And they have a huge turnaround, so it is probably very fresh.

I partial mash, and use between 1 to 2 lbs of LME per brew, so it will last a long time. I also use it for starters.
 

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