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I did have issues doing that as it left a powdery white chalky calcium/lime film inside the bottles. I then had to soak them in vinegar to remove that. Now I fill them with water prior to the Oxyclean label removal.
 
soccerdad said:
I apologize if this gets off topic. You all got me thinking about Hops By The Pound which I have never done. So I did a usage analysis and was not surprised to find that I really should buy Cascade, Centennial, EKG anf Fuggles by the pound. A tiny bit surprised to see that maybe I should buy Simcoe in quantity. A solid *maybe* for Chinook, Columbus, Northern Brewer and Williamette. So where is a good place to buy? Nikobrew is certainly one option - where else is good ??
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My favorite supplier is Yakima Valley Hops........ Prices are good, selection is excellent, as is service. I know what I'm getting and that it is stored properly, weather it's this year's crop or last years. I normally buy only pellets.

You can use hops wastefully or you can use them efficiently......... more hops do not necessarily make better beer...... The right amounts of the right hops at the right time is the key.

H.W.
 
On the subject of hops, I have found that a lot can be saved on hops by the techniques you use. First wort hopping gives you a few more IBUs and also contributes the equivalent of a 20 minute flavor addition. I have also been using post-boil steeping which gives you bittering, flavor and aroma. In many cases between these 2 techniques I save a couple of ounces of hops along with reducing the beer wasted due to trub. That can add up to a 4 or 5 buck savings for a batch.

Bob
 
Chadwick put it SPOT ON...

This has to be a hobby first and save you money second....well at least for me it is.
It's way too much work to go through for saving some bucks on a case of beer.
Be honest with yourself, if you really cannot afford to buy a case of beer - you're doing something wrong.
Not being unsympathetic - just practical.
 
DNKDUKE said:
Chadwick put it SPOT ON...

This has to be a hobby first and save you money second....well at least for me it is.
It's way too much work to go through for saving some bucks on a case of beer.
Be honest with yourself, if you really cannot afford to buy a case of beer - you're doing something wrong.
Not being unsympathetic - just practical.
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Agree! Never have had a hobby that saved me money like this hobby. That is comparing quality of product. Otherwise they probably still sell "BEER" :mug:
 
BobBailey said:
On the subject of hops, I have found that a lot can be saved on hops by the techniques you use. First wort hopping gives you a few more IBUs and also contributes the equivalent of a 20 minute flavor addition. I have also been using post-boil steeping which gives you bittering, flavor and aroma. In many cases between these 2 techniques I save a couple of ounces of hops along with reducing the beer wasted due to trub. That can add up to a 4 or 5 buck savings for a batch.

Bob
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I nearly always do a FWH with my brews..........


H.W.
 
I just bought 105 lbs of malted barley today......... I ordered a 55 pound sack of Dark Munich, from the LHBS, and picked up a 50 pound sack of Malteurope 2 row from my friend who owns a microbrewery ($23.50 .......... the price went up due to a poor crop this year). This is his actual cost. I felt a dollar a pound for Dark Munich from the LHBS was a phenomenally good price considering the retail source. But I DID order it, I do know the girl who does the homebrew part of the business, and I'll get it in about two weeks. Out of the bin it's $1.75. They were unfortunately out of wheat malt and very low on rye malt.... both of which I wanted, so I'll have to defer that particular project until I get back. It's 80 miles away.


H.W.
 
"Here's a real time saver - don't remove labels!"

That's something I don't care much to see along with reused bottle caps. And I've seen them both (at the same time). If you are cutting that many corners what else are you doing or not doing? It's a bit off putting.

And I have some beer bottled with labels still attached as I hadn't accounted for the number I'd need and gave too many away without removing the labels from my newer bottles. But I don't care for that.

It took me less than 10 minutes to get warm water and Oxyclean in to my bucket to soak the bottles. The labels, depending on brand, usually come off on their own leaving me with potentially just needing to remove the glue if it's present. Maybe another 10-15 mins for another day. It may save a little time but it makes for poor presentation IMO.
 
rodwha said:
"Here's a real time saver - don't remove labels!"

That's something I don't care much to see along with reused bottle caps. And I've seen them both (at the same time). If you are cutting that many corners what else are you doing or not doing? It's a bit off putting.

And I have some beer bottled with labels still attached as I hadn't accounted for the number I'd need and gave too many away without removing the labels from my newer bottles. But I don't care for that.

It took me less than 10 minutes to get warm water and Oxyclean in to my bucket to soak the bottles. The labels, depending on brand, usually come off on their own leaving me with potentially just needing to remove the glue if it's present. Maybe another 10-15 mins for another day. It may save a little time but it makes for poor presentation IMO.
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*golfclap*

We're not moonshiners here. Respect the product of your labor enough up package it properly.
 
That's certainly how I personally feel, and I don't mean to sound condescending, but I feel that most people who aren't really familiar with home brewing would feel, at the least, the same way (outside of family and close friends).
 
Aside from the big ones, like reusing bottles, buying in bulk, and washing yeast, some other good ones for me were:

Using tap water instead of bottled water. I bought a bottle of campden tabs to treat it 2 years ago for $2 and it's still half full. (Optimism!)

Using some sort of chiller vs an ice bath. Yes you will run more water this way, but even that can be repurposed, and it's way cheaper than ice.

These 2 things save me $10 per batch at least.
 
guldalian said:
Aside from the big ones, like reusing bottles, buying in bulk, and washing yeast, some other good ones for me were:

Using tap water instead of bottled water. I bought a bottle of campden tabs to treat it 2 years ago for $2 and it's still half full. (Optimism!)

Using some sort of chiller vs an ice bath. Yes you will run more water this way, but even that can be repurposed, and it's way cheaper than ice.

These 2 things save me $10 per batch at least.
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Why use campden tabs??? With beer you are boiling your wort.... campden is anti bacterial..... It's kind of redundant isn't it?? Chlorine & flouride should be the concerns as well as the mineral profile.

H.W.
 
Owly055 said:
Why use campden tabs??? With beer you are boiling your wort.... campden is anti bacterial..... It's kind of redundant isn't it?? Chlorine & flouride should be the concerns as well as the mineral profile.

H.W.
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to get rid of cloramine and chloromide that cause off flavors in beer.
 
Make your own equipment where possible. I made my own mashtun, boil kettle etc. from kegs that cost next to nothing.
Buy equipment used, online. I got great stuff from people quitting brewing and selling everything at pennies on the dollar.
Brew all grain, instead of extracts or kits or anything else processed. Better beer, more satisfying, more recipe control.
I buy my bulk grain from a craft brewer friend. If not an option, buy 50 pound sacks.
Shop everything. I find hops in .5-full pound quantities for a fraction of the price of those little packets.
Be flexible. Hops seem to have wild fluctuations in price. If one variety is too expensive get creative and substitute. One expensive hop and a ten gallon batch of IPA can double the material cost for the whole batch.
Save and wash your yeast, at least for a couple of generations.
Get yeast from bottle conditioned beers and propagate it with starters.
Never buy bottles. If you put the word out, your friends will give you more than you can handle. I mostly keg now, but I have numerous 1 litre swingtops and 22 ounce bottles that all came to me free. You can get them from restaurants, or a re-cycle center too.
I do support my LHBS but it is often less expensive to get a large order online. I use More Beer but do shop around.

I am brewing really good craft ales and I average about 35-40 cents for materials, cleaning supplies, CO2 etc. My labor is added at zero of course.
 
Alright bud. If you're running spreadsheets like me. You'll see that equipment costs are fixed. Not much you can do there. But you can save dramatically on these 3 things.

1) Yeast - wash and save or just rack onto a yeast cake. (Personally I get rid of half the cake because I don't want 10 inches of yeast/trub at the bottom.)

2) Grain - your doing extract brewing, which, in it's very nature is more expensive. Switch to all grain brewing and even with the added equipment expenses you'll see your costs fall pretty hard.

3) Bottles - I don't know how you are sourcing bottles that cost 3.33. But it's time to look on Craigslist or find a bar nearby and offer to pick up all their bottles for 2 or 3 months. (They normally won't bite the bait unless you make it worthwhile. So even if you have enough bottles after 1 month. You'll probably be collecting a bit longer).

Those three are heavy hitters. There are other tricks. But like I said. I saw the numbers rolling in when I did those 3 and easily beat the store. Even paid for my brewing equipment. Haven't paid for the kegerator yet. But getting there.

Good luck and happy brewing!
 
It's true that costs are always a factor in anything for most of us. I started home brewing beer for two reasons. 1) My father home brewed his entire life. When he passed away I inherited his equipment and the process of brewing is one of those way that I can feel closer to him. 2) I can't drink most BMC style beers. They make me sick to my stomach. The more consecutive days I drink BMC, the worse the effect gets. My father had the same problem, which is why he started home brewing. For whatever reason, home brew doesn't make me sick.

All of that aside, I think most of us that brew at home are doing it for the sake of the art of it, the adventure, the exploration, or simply because we can feel empowered more with the choices we have available to us. We aren't limited by what a local business person thinks they can move off a shelf. We aren't restrained by anything other than our imagination. And with that said, it isn't always about cost. Why does a musician put $2000 worth of music equipment into a $500 car to drive 100 miles to play a show for $50? A: Because of the joy of doing it. The expression they get to experience. The act of hearing the music and knowing they are the source, the point of creation. Home brewers, I think, are doing the same thing sometimes. And thank goodness they are. Because every once in a while a local musician becomes a national success, an icon. Just ask Sam Calagione. :)
 
1977Brewer said:
*golfclap*

We're not moonshiners here. Respect the product of your labor enough up package it properly.
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Every had REALLY, I mean earth-shatteringly-thigh-quivering amazing, BBQ? I bet it came on a cheap paper plate if you have. Often served with a slice of plain white bread and a pickle.

To each their own, the presentation is in the glass, not the bottle.
 
The best BBQ I ever ate came on a hotdog boat. Not the fancy checkered kind, the elongated coffee filter kind. good point. I'm gonna start saving spaghetti jars. Or the lids, I aleady keep the jars.
 
I do BIAB. I have a ten gallon kettle and a homemade voille bag. I use a five gallon bucket with holes drilled into the bottom to drain the bag after the mash.
This bucket is set on top of the kettle on a grate while I sparge about two additional gallons of hot water thru the bag. After the boil and cool down, I almost always use harvested yeast slurry for my beers.
If you just look at the ingredients that are purchased to make my 6 gallon BIAB batches, between grain and hops I will spend less than $16.00 for 6 gallons of beer.
Of course this cost does not factor in the fuel and the water and chemicals used for cleaning and sanitizing or my time and effort that is involved.
I already purchase my hops by the pound and have two hops plants growing in my front yard. I plan on purchasing 50 pound bags of two row malt in the future for additional savings.
I don't even bother using a chiller. I just put my kettle into one of those huge tubs with some water and change the water out 3 or 4 times. The wort is usually pitchable within one hour.
I typically keg five gallons and will bottle about one gallon. The bottles are used Sam Adams bottles which work great.
I have found that the greatest cost are accumulating all of the necessary equipment and materials for your brewing and dispensing processes.
 
1977Brewer said:
The best BBQ I ever ate came on a hotdog boat. Not the fancy checkered kind, the elongated coffee filter kind. good point. I'm gonna start saving spaghetti jars. Or the lids, I aleady keep the jars.
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FYI, I live up north now. They think they know what real BBQ is. They are wrong. Confirmed with my southern co-workers and BBQ served on anything other than a paper product is just not quite right. Tony Roma's is not great product.

Sorry Chicago, you do not know smoked pork to save your a#$.

P.S. Chicago, great steaks do not cost $120 either, but when the boss is paying it is as good as a $30 fillet in Amarillo.
 
My aunt flies down from NJ to TX several times a year and takes back extra portions of BBQ home for her husband. It's that good!
 
Chadwick said:
I actually do save money brewing. I'm able to do this because I brew BIG beers more often than not. I also BIAB. If I was doing extract brewing I could not come out ahead. As it stands now, I typically have $30 invested in a batch of barleywine that would cost me over about $15 per 4-pack to buy.

The math is easy to work out.
If I purchased 48 bottles of barleywine at a cost of $15 per four the cost for 48 bottles would be $180
Make it myself - cost = $30-40

I make about 8 batches of this stuff a year. At a savings of $140 per batch over the cost of buying it, I save about $1120 per year brewing my own. I have about $500 invested in my equipment, so it paid for itself within the first year.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that I also reuse bottles. I use Sierra Nevada bottles. These are good durable bottles. I've only had one bottle chip in three years of reusing the bottles I have now. And that one that chipped did so because of a mistake I made. So my bottle cost isn't something I consider a cost. Friends have happily rinsed out their SN bottles and saved them for me. I have more than enough right now to have 8 batches bottled at any given time.

I order my hops in bulk from a hop farm online.

I order my grains in bulk (10lb packages) from Morebeer online.

I often make my own crystal malt and roasted malt at home.
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How tough is the barleywine? I'd like to try that next.
 
Ditto on the above, also can anyone (preferably Canadian as I'll have a better chance of finding it) recommend a good barley wine as I'd love to try one sometime before I commit to trying it myself. Heard good things, would just be nice to benchmark against something.
 
"How tough is the barleywine? I'd like to try that next."

It's not really that different from another brew but it takes at a very minimum 9-12 months to be good with further aging making it better.

It's more about good practices and patience. Any flaws will be forefront by then.
 
GiAnT4LYFE said:
How tough is the barleywine? I'd like to try that next.
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Barleywine can be a bit tricky, but not as much as some people would have you believe. Against popular beer theology, barleywines do not have to age for almost a year before you can drink them. Although, they do age well and usually benefit more than less from extended aging.

Patience is the key to brewing a barleywine. My personal guidelines are:
OG starts at 1.090, can be much higher
Minimum primary of 4 weeks, 5-8 preferred
Minimum bottle conditioning of 6 weeks, 12+ preferred
Use a strong attenuating yeast, have a backup plan
Primary fermentation starts in the mid 60's but is allowed to warm up into the lower 70's after the first 3 weeks.
 
vincentAlpha said:
Ditto on the above, also can anyone (preferably Canadian as I'll have a better chance of finding it) recommend a good barley wine as I'd love to try one sometime before I commit to trying it myself. Heard good things, would just be nice to benchmark against something.
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There is 'good' beer in Canada? I thought you guys just had Molson (I think that is Coors now).
 
There are a small handful of craft breweries, how much of that is 'good' beer remains to be seen but there are a couple(really missing my old local brewpub these days, I was a 10 minute walk...). I've been trying the local Newfoundlander stuff, not that impressed, just your usual mass market more-adjunct-than-malt Canadian Lagers.
 
23.gif
What are some tricks you have used to save money?
29.gif
 
Update:
1) currently repurposing New Belguim bottles....not buying.

2) found new online suppliers and shopping and costs dropped dramatically.

Those two alone have been huge!
 
KartRacer54 said:
Otherwise they probably still sell "BEER" :mug:
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They do - I've seen it. Apparently I've moved to Nascar country.

I was at a new "high end" grocery store, where they have 50 feet+ of craft/import beer and cider coolers - this guy walks up to me totally confused and asks where the "regular beer" is...
 
Dawgchad said:
Currently repurposing New Belguim bottles....not buying.
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12 of 22 ozs bottles? I have a load of their 22 ozs bottles, and keep finding cracks in them. They seem weaker than other bottles. I have not used any of their 12 ozs bottles.
 

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