The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: mabinogi on April 08, 2015, 02:16:52 PM
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My husband and I drink a fair amount of good beer. We probably go through 1-2 six-packs a week (less right now because I'm pregnant and not drinking at all). We've toyed for a while with the thought of brewing our own but I don't know if we'd enjoy it enough for it to be worth the time unless it also saved us money. Any home-brewers here? We were given some of the equipment from a friend but not all of it, so there would be a start-up cost, of course.
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I am in Saskatchewan, Canada, so our prices for store bought beer are high. Like $6 or $7 a pint high, especially if you like good beer. So for me it is much cheaper. I brew it for about $1.25 a liter. This is the easy way to brew. It would be less then 1/2 that if I went to an all grain brew. But the start up is more for that, so I have held off for now.
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Yes you can make beer for less then you buy it for. Even very good beer.
However; i found once i started brewing that it became a hobby that i would spend money on. New bits of kit to improve your process. Going to beer events etc.
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Spending money on equipment to brew excellent beer at home seems a worthwhile tradeoff. :)
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and dycker - Go all grain. you will never look back.
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I never could make the math strong enough to justify doing it just to save money. I can buy good beer (Sierra Nevada is my favorite) for around $1.10 each on sale (12 pack). I didn't back test it, but my estimated number for home brew was around $.75 each. With the other things I had going on, it just wasn't worth my time to save a few dollars. Also, having 50 beers sitting around just led to more drinking. For now, I just grow hops and trade them for beer from my homebrewing friends. Although, I may go after it again once I FIRE.
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I look into it every couple of years, but so far it hasn't penciled out for me to make my own beer.
Economies of scale make all the difference. There's just no way for me in my garage to compete on price with a real brewery unless I'm also making massive quantities of beer. I just don't drink enough.
It could be close for some expensive beers, but even then I would end up with a ton of one kind of beer. I much prefer to have six kinds of beer in my fridge at all times.
Store bought beer is of uniformly good quality, with no bad batches. It's reasonably priced, seasonally rotated, comes in more types and flavors than I could ever make on my own, and is always available pre-chilled a five minute walk from my house.
Brewing beer is a fine hobby and I look forward to having the time to pursue it in retirement. But I don't pretend it will save me any money.
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I did my senior project in college on the cost/benefit analysis of brewing your own beer. I surveyed a couple hundred people on Homebrewtalk.com and my results pretty much showed that it can be cost effective on a per batch basis, its just getting over the hump of all the equipment that you need to buy. and then the fact that you always want the best/new equipment. Another factor is that in order to make a fancier/tastier beer, it may require more/unique ingredients which cost more. I also had a question that asked if the people brewed beer to save money. about 90% of the poeple surveyed do not. it turns into quite a fun/expensive hobby.
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The cost of the basic equipment needed for start up should be less than $100 (brew pot, fermenting bucket, transfer tube, sanitizer, glass carboy, bottle capper). You can add potentially thousands of dollars worth of equipment depending on how complex you want your operation to be. Inevitably, craigslist will have used homebrew equipment from others that have decided that either the time it takes or the sanitation efforts are not worth it.
Starting with extract brewing, you should be able to get kits to produce 5 gallons of beer for $30-$60, depending on how big/complex the beer is. At that price, you are looking at $.60 to $1.20 for a 12oz bottle, so it would be significantly below. Of course, each batch will have 10-12 hours of work associated with it, so whether or not you want to think of that cost/end up enjoying the process will really be the biggest factor. Brewing all-grain, your costs will go down per batch, but there will be additional equipment and time costs. Brewing all-grain, I have made clones of some high end beers ($5 or more per 12 oz bottle) at a cost of $1.00 - $1.30 per bottle.
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... comes in more types and flavors than I could ever make on my own, ...
I totally disagree with you on this one Sol. How many varieties you make is only limited by your gumption. You have never struck me as someone with a shortage of that.
Your bottom line is spot on though. It is a great hobby. Not a money saver.
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Not a money saver. If you drink Trappist ales and limited edition craft bombers exclusively, you can eventually make it cheaper than you can buy it. But only after you've amortized the cost of the equipment over several batches and improved your quality control to the point where your beer is consistently excellent. Even then, much depends on how you use water for chilling, rinsing bottles and/or kegs for re-use, cleaning and rinsing mash tuns, fermenters, etc., and whether or not you spend money on electricity to control fermentation temperatures, lager your Oktoberfests and Pilsners, etc.
A decade ago when I started brewing, I couldn't find altbiers, saisons, or witbiers with any regularity, so I justified it on those grounds. But now, even the most obscure styles and historical oddities are available from excellent craft brewers.
I love beer brewing, and I am generally of the opinion that learning skills is a good thing, but if you're looking into it to save money, your better off finding savings elsewhere.
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Long time homebrewer here! I think it can be cost effective if you resist the urge to spend money on constantly updating your home brewery. I went down this track and looking back realized what a tremendous waste of money it was. The Simple Dollar did a good article discussing the costs here (http://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-walkthrough-and-cost-breakdown-of-brewing-your-own-beer/).
Its very easy to make great beer with a very basic kit, like this one (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewing-starter-kit-1.html) for $100. All you need is a pot that holds ~ 5 gallons and a stove. Stick with bottling your batches (start saving your bottles from purchased beer instead of buying them), as kegging means a lot of expensive equipment. As you learn more about brewing, you will be tempted to go with "all grain" over "extract", but stick with extract because all grain can also require more equipment and added complexity. You can make great tasting beer with extract kits!
A lot of fancy equipment is needed if you want to make the exact same beer twice. Take the 'artists' approach and let every batch surprise you!
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We are blessed with some of the world's highest alcohol taxes (~$3/liter for normal beer), so the math is very simple. Almost no matter what you do, you will save money brewing your own.
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Thanks, everyone! So, if I average all your responses ;) it sounds as though we could break even on beer-brewing but won't likely save a ton of money. In that case, I think we will wait a while until we're sure we have the time (and desire) to do it as a hobby. It's probably not a high priority right now, but is something that we'd both like to get into eventually.
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Thanks, everyone! So, if I average all your responses ;) it sounds as though we could break even on beer-brewing but won't likely save a ton of money. In that case, I think we will wait a while until we're sure we have the time (and desire) to do it as a hobby.
The joy you get from drinking something you made yourself is hard to quantify in $$s, but it definitely counts for something! I have seen breweries / homebrew stores around that will let you use all their equipment to brew a batch of beer. Basically you pay a fee, they teach you how to brew, and you pick up your tasty goodness a month or so later. This would be a good option for someone trying to test the waters! I'm in MN, and this is an example (http://www.vinepark.com/) of a place that does this by me, but there are plenty of other options around.
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Other option is to buy small (1/6 bbl or 5 gallon) kegs assuming you have a way to tap/serve it. Probably more cost effective than buying bottles. You can generally pick up used refrigerators from Craigslist that are in good condition for good prices. Then you could hook up the tap yourself.
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I am in Saskatchewan, Canada, so our prices for store bought beer are high. Like $6 or $7 a pint high, especially if you like good beer. So for me it is much cheaper. I brew it for about $1.25 a liter. This is the easy way to brew. It would be less then 1/2 that if I went to an all grain brew. But the start up is more for that, so I have held off for now.
Check this out (http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=90132), the costs are minimal this way!
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I am in Saskatchewan, Canada, so our prices for store bought beer are high. Like $6 or $7 a pint high, especially if you like good beer. So for me it is much cheaper. I brew it for about $1.25 a liter. This is the easy way to brew. It would be less then 1/2 that if I went to an all grain brew. But the start up is more for that, so I have held off for now.
Check this out (http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=90132), the costs are minimal this way!
Awesome!!! thanks
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I am in Saskatchewan, Canada, so our prices for store bought beer are high.
Much of the home brew industry is based in Canada, because the high taxes on store-bought alcohol make DIY beer a relative bargain.
Here in the states I've found homebrew to be something to do as an enjoyable hobby, just not for the savings.
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It's cheaper for me on a per-beer basis. Probably $0.40 - 0.75 per beer for homebrew, vs. $1.00 - $1.50 for similar quality storebought beer (For styles, I'm talking regular strength craft brew styles - good porters, pale ales etc, but nothing imperial or high gravity). But, I also find that I am much more generous giving beers to friends with homebrew than I would be otherwise, so I'm not sure I actually spend less money on beer. I brew extract plus mini-mash, all grain is cheaper, but I don't have the space for a mash tun. If you do, all grain gear does not have to be expensive. Yes, you can spend hundreds on fancy stainless steel purpose made stuff... but you you can also make a mash tun out of an old cooler and a 15 gallon pot out of an keg with the top cut off.
Generally, it is cheaper in most situations, but I think in most areas the cost savings are nice if you also enjoy brewing, but maybe not large enough to justify homebrewing for cost reasons alone, because it certainly takes time.
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MMM's article on brewing cider rekindled my interest a few months ago and homebrewtalk.com has fed my appetite for knowledge. If I stuck with brewing cider I would probably get the cost/bottle down to about $0.40 vs. an Angry Orchard is $1.50 most of the time around here. Buutttt...the reception was so positive and I've had so much fun that I'm experimenting with apfelwein and mead now.
Just reiterating what others have said. It's a really fun hobby and you can save money per bottle, but you'll likely end up buying more equipment and drinking/sharing more than you would otherwise. I recommend it! :)
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It's cheaper than good craft beers. ~$0.70-$1/beer plus natural gas to cook (not sure how much brewing uses). Few cents for the cap. Water is well water so essentially free, for me anyway. I just reuse and reuse old beer bottles. Around here a decent beer in six pack is ~ $1.49/beer or more.
That said, even if it were cost neutral I would still home brew. I like the beer I make at home better than just about anything I can buy at the store. If I get behind and run out of home brew, my wife and I lament having to buy crappy store bought beer.
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We found it fun and cost effective for people who like good beer. However, the Hub quickly concluded that he could not brew beer an make his military weight every six months so we gave away the equipment.
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Cost-effective with buying vs ingredients to homebrew? Yes.
Cost-effective with buying vs ingredients to homebrew plus equipment to buy? Only after many batches.
Cost-effective with buying vs ingredients to homebrew plus equipment to buy plus your time doing it? Never. (well maybe if your hourly rate to pay yourself is less than min wage)
That being said, I've been doing it for years and it's a great hobby. No price on making something yourself, being able to share with family and friends, and the taste rivals most craft beers IMO.
I'm actually planning to move to all grain, and do half batches, brew in a bag (BIAB) style, so I don't have any overhead with new equipment, and to be able to experiment more. I think if I was starting today, I would have went right to BIAB all grain and skipped the extracts completely.
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I find you save the most by brewing the most expensive styles. I.E. you save more $/bottle on a strong Belgian beer or imperial stout than on a wheat beer or pale ale.
Hourly rate shouldn't be a factor, unless you are literally doing it instead of working at a time when you have the option to be getting paid. Just because your salary averages out to $25/hr doesn't mean you are losing $200 by spending four hours on a Saturday cleaning, brewing, and cleaning some more. It's a hobby, so if it supports itself or saves you a few bucks over just buying it, and it's fun, go for it. I'd never do it purely to save money if it weren't fun, though.
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It can be cost effective, but having shelves of bottles of delicious homebrew means you tend to drink more, I found, and family/friends are always expecting to drink your beer (which is fun, but gets annoying). I stopped homebrewing, stopped drinking nearly as much (and I was never a heavy drinker) b/c beer in SE Asia just isn't worth it, and I feel healthier.
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I wouldn't brew just to save money. If that's your reason, it'll become a chore.
That said, as a hobby I had fun and it was cheap entertainment on the weekends. I absolutely hated bottling so I switched to kegging so that was nice. Eventually, though, I just didn't drink enough to keep doing it. Now I have a bunch of homebrew stuff I really should sell.
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I've been brewing for 6 years. First year was partial mash, last 5 all grain.
It can be cost effective, but for me and most of my local homebrew buddies, it's a hobby, so it's not.
You can brew very cheaply (used brew pot, burner, chest freezer for fermentation control, carboys or buckets), but the vast majority of home brewers I know, they end up spending money on those things since they are hard to run across on Craig's. If you invest in nice stuff (which I do), unless you brew constantly, you'll never recoup the initial equipment investment.
Compounding things for me is that I still enjoy commercial beer, so I purchase a lot too. :)
If you still want to do it economically, here's my best advice:
- All grain
- Used equipment
- Try to get into getting bulk grain. We have a group, so I buy all my base grain in 55 lb bags. Saves a ton of money.
- bulk hops. Harder to get, but in the fall you can buy pounds of hops online from a variety of hop providers.
- Significantly lower or eliminate buying commercial beer
- Make styles that are cheaper to brew. For instance a wheat, brown or German lager (if you have temp control), will be much cheaper per batch than IPAs or imperial stouts
- Get all your info free from John Palmer's first book, Beer Advocate, or Homebrewtalk
- Take good care of your equipment. If you maintain and clean it, you can use most of it for years.
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http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/11/getting-started-if-i-knew-then-what-i-know-now/
Check that out for info on how to make a cheap, first AG batch.
Buy ingredients in bulk. Hops, base grain.
I dropped about $1k on equipment, total. I could have done half that much money and be making the same beer if I weren't stupid.
All in all, if you enjoy it, then yes it is worth it. You can save money if you keep it simple (3 gallon BIAB as linked above, simple hefeweizen can be done for $10 or so if you harvest your own yeast with under $100 equipment) but I wouldn't count on keeping it simple. If you don't enjoy the process, you can do better by doing errands on craigslist to buy more beer. The labor involved is not intense but it is time consuming. I bet I spend 8-10 hours between procuring ingredients, brewing the wort, tending to fermentation, and bottling for 10-12 gallons of beer.
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I will agree with both posters above me.
Used equipment is much cheaper. So cheap that I actually made some $ by keeping what I wanted and selling stuff individually.
Buying ingredients in bulk. Grains : 70 cents per pound. Hops: 100 cents per ounce.
Wash and reuse your yeast. A single liquid pouch can be used for several generations.
Kegging saves time and eventually money (if you amortize the cost of the caps + sugar).
With all the above, you could make a BMC clone batch (who would do that?!) for less than 12$ for 5 gallons worth of wort (pun intended).
That's about 18 cents per 341 ml serving. Doing something really good is not that much more expensive.
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With all the above, you could make a BMC clone batch (who would do that?!) for less than 12$ for 5 gallons worth of wort (pun intended).
Definitely don't start with that. I recommend starting with an ale, and preferably a fairly flavorful ale around 5-6% ABV. Trying for a tasteless lager your first time out is just asking for a gross mess.
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Beer-brewing at home?
nice idea!
And a perfect business too as people might stop drinking water but will never stop drinking beer.
That's what brands think
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And a perfect business too as people might stop drinking water but will never stop drinking beer.
That's what brands think
Careful, if you don't like jailtime, you need permits to sell stuff you make at home. It might be different where you are but USA and CAN are pretty stringent about this.
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We are blessed with some of the world's highest alcohol taxes (~$3/liter for normal beer), so the math is very simple. Almost no matter what you do, you will save money brewing your own.
That's the case for most things in Norway. DIY is great because the local purchasing power is not that great (despite being "world richest country"):
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-living/Local-purchasing-power . I do nearly everything myself despite earning a decent engineer salary because DIY is next to always cost-effective.
For the thread starter i would say - It depends on. If you're earning a engineer salary (100 k USD+) and living in the US I would not brew beer at home, but for high tax countries (Norway, Canada etc.) DIY brewing is a great tax dodging technique.
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This is why I love this forum: any hobby you mention, at least three people are pros at it.
To answer your OP: I've always heard from homebrewers that you get into it for the hobby, not for the cost benefits.
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No it is not.
If you like beer you might consider building your own keg cooler big enough for 2 or 3 kegs. Keg beer is generally much cheaper than bottled and IMHO tastes better. Keg beer is generally alive and unpasteurized vs. heat treated bottled or canned beer. Plus your friends and family will think you are very cool with your own tap.
If you want to save money, you might consider good old vodka though. For $6 you can buy a 20 drink bottle. Mix it with a little water and ice and you're ready to go. It is 4 times as cheap as craft beer.
If your just going for a beer buzz consider Keystone Ice. Packs a punch and doesn't cost a bunch.
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Keg beer is generally alive and unpasteurized vs. heat treated bottled or canned beer.
That's just not true. Most craft beer is not pasteurized. It is typically filtered to remove the yeast and some proteins but it is a rare craft brewer that bothers to pasteurize anything. If it isn't bottle conditioned it will generally be pretty close to the same as a kegged beer.
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Hogwash. It costs me 50 to 75 cents a pint vs. $1.50 or more for equivalent store bought stuff. I bang out 10 gallons at a time and save quite a bit every year doing this. Don't go nuts with spendy equipment and it is a clear money saver. Then there are all the side benefits, like making exactly what you want. I can make renditions of beers that are no longer made, for example.
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If you like beer you might consider building your own keg cooler big enough for 2 or 3 kegs. Keg beer is generally much cheaper than bottled
This part is false too. I got the bottles for free after a beer tasting, they come free from bars, and you can find them on craigslist. But even if you paid for brand new bottles you'd be looking at 50c per bottle (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/12-oz-beer-bottles), and they last forever if you don't drop them. So a five-gallon batch is going to run you $25 in fixed costs, far less than a kegerator even if you consider that a big enough kegerator can hold 15 gallons.
The picture is even more strongly in favor of bottling when you look at variable costs. Caps are 2.5c each (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/bottling/bottle-caps-closures/fermenters-favorites-plain-gold-crown-caps-120-count-beer-bottle-caps). Priming sugar (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Brew-Dextrose-10lb-Bag/dp/B0013NJWKW) costs equally little - five gallons would use a quarter pound (http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html), or $.63. So your total variable cost per 5 gallon batch is $1.88. That's 31 kWh even at my very cheap electricity rates, which will only run a chest freezer (http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/chest_freezer.html) for nine days and change. Then there's the $40 CO2 tank, which lasts for just five or six batches. So kegging has higher variable costs too, and it's not even close.
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If you like beer you might consider building your own keg cooler big enough for 2 or 3 kegs. Keg beer is generally much cheaper than bottled
This part is false too. I got the bottles for free after a beer tasting, they come free from bars, and you can find them on craigslist. But even if you paid for brand new bottles you'd be looking at 50c per bottle (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/12-oz-beer-bottles), and they last forever if you don't drop them. So a five-gallon batch is going to run you $25 in fixed costs, far less than a kegerator even if you consider that a big enough kegerator can hold 15 gallons.
The picture is even more strongly in favor of bottling when you look at variable costs. Caps are 2.5c each (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/bottling/bottle-caps-closures/fermenters-favorites-plain-gold-crown-caps-120-count-beer-bottle-caps). Priming sugar (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Brew-Dextrose-10lb-Bag/dp/B0013NJWKW) costs equally little - five gallons would use a quarter pound (http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html), or $.63. So your total variable cost per 5 gallon batch is $1.88. That's 31 kWh even at my very cheap electricity rates, which will only run a chest freezer (http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/chest_freezer.html) for nine days and change. Then there's the $40 CO2 tank, which lasts for just five or six batches. So kegging has higher variable costs too, and it's not even close.
He's talking about commercial beer.
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Ah, I didn't catch the departure from actual beer brewing, the subject of the thread.
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The picture is even more strongly in favor of bottling when you look at variable costs. Caps are 2.5c each (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/bottling/bottle-caps-closures/fermenters-favorites-plain-gold-crown-caps-120-count-beer-bottle-caps). Priming sugar (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Brew-Dextrose-10lb-Bag/dp/B0013NJWKW) costs equally little - five gallons would use a quarter pound (http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html), or $.63. So your total variable cost per 5 gallon batch is $1.88. That's 31 kWh even at my very cheap electricity rates, which will only run a chest freezer (http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/chest_freezer.html) for nine days and change. Then there's the $40 CO2 tank, which lasts for just five or six batches. So kegging has higher variable costs too, and it's not even close.
I disagree that kegging is more expensive.
I have a 20# CO2 tank and it cost me 32$ to fill it up. That will dispense 62-87 brews at 5 gallon. So you are looking at a cost of 30-50 cents per batch to dispense versus about 1$ for caps.
You can carbonate it the same as when you bottle, with sugar.
I already have a second full size fridge that we use to store bulk food so I just stick a keg at the back.
What I like most is that kegging takes 5 minutes versus 45-60 minutes and I don't have a bunch of bottles to clean.
In summary, kegging is cheaper if: You buy CO2 in 20# tanks. Don't force carb. Don't buy a fridge specifically for kegs (if you have one already).
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The picture is even more strongly in favor of bottling when you look at variable costs. Caps are 2.5c each (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/bottling/bottle-caps-closures/fermenters-favorites-plain-gold-crown-caps-120-count-beer-bottle-caps). Priming sugar (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Brew-Dextrose-10lb-Bag/dp/B0013NJWKW) costs equally little - five gallons would use a quarter pound (http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html), or $.63. So your total variable cost per 5 gallon batch is $1.88. That's 31 kWh even at my very cheap electricity rates, which will only run a chest freezer (http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/chest_freezer.html) for nine days and change. Then there's the $40 CO2 tank, which lasts for just five or six batches. So kegging has higher variable costs too, and it's not even close.
I disagree that kegging is more expensive.
I have a 20# CO2 tank and it cost me 32$ to fill it up. That will dispense 62-87 brews at 5 gallon. So you are looking at a cost of 30-50 cents per batch to dispense versus about 1$ for caps.
You can carbonate it the same as when you bottle, with sugar.
I already have a second full size fridge that we use to store bulk food so I just stick a keg at the back.
What I like most is that kegging takes 5 minutes versus 45-60 minutes and I don't have a bunch of bottles to clean.
In summary, kegging is cheaper if: You buy CO2 in 20# tanks. Don't force carb. Don't buy a fridge specifically for kegs (if you have one already).
How do you bottle in 45-60 minutes?? Took me 4 hours with 2 people to do 108 bottles on Saturday!
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The picture is even more strongly in favor of bottling when you look at variable costs. Caps are 2.5c each (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/bottling/bottle-caps-closures/fermenters-favorites-plain-gold-crown-caps-120-count-beer-bottle-caps). Priming sugar (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Brew-Dextrose-10lb-Bag/dp/B0013NJWKW) costs equally little - five gallons would use a quarter pound (http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html), or $.63. So your total variable cost per 5 gallon batch is $1.88. That's 31 kWh even at my very cheap electricity rates, which will only run a chest freezer (http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/chest_freezer.html) for nine days and change. Then there's the $40 CO2 tank, which lasts for just five or six batches. So kegging has higher variable costs too, and it's not even close.
I disagree that kegging is more expensive.
I have a 20# CO2 tank and it cost me 32$ to fill it up. That will dispense 62-87 brews at 5 gallon. So you are looking at a cost of 30-50 cents per batch to dispense versus about 1$ for caps.
You can carbonate it the same as when you bottle, with sugar.
I already have a second full size fridge that we use to store bulk food so I just stick a keg at the back.
What I like most is that kegging takes 5 minutes versus 45-60 minutes and I don't have a bunch of bottles to clean.
In summary, kegging is cheaper if: You buy CO2 in 20# tanks. Don't force carb. Don't buy a fridge specifically for kegs (if you have one already).
How do you bottle in 45-60 minutes?? Took me 4 hours with 2 people to do 108 bottles on Saturday!
I have a vacuum pump (which is something that can be DIY) and I only do 22oz or 14oz bottles. Also, I am only counting the time it takes for me to fill bottles with the precious precious liquid. Meaning that the bottles are clean and sterilized.
Filling a keg is a BREEEZE compared to this.
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+1 on kegging being a clear winner. Frankly, I will more than happily toss in a few extra shekels to be able to force carb and keg rather than the hassle of bottling.
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I made this post a while back, I could certainly go into endless additional detail, but I think my main point is that if you ever hope to save money by brewing your own beer, you have to pick the right beer styles to brew at home.
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/opened-my-first-batch-of-brew-and-it-was-good/msg182573/#msg182573
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How do you bottle in 45-60 minutes?? Took me 4 hours with 2 people to do 108 bottles on Saturday!
It takes us less than an hour for 50 bottles:
1. Run dishwasher with all bottles in it. Watch Netflix.
2. Put beer and priming sugar in bottling bucket on counter. Put bottles on door of dishwasher.
3. Fill bottles with bottling wand.
4. Cap. Carry to cellar.
4 hours is insane!
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I have a 20# CO2 tank and it cost me 32$ to fill it up. That will dispense 62-87 brews at 5 gallon. So you are looking at a cost of 30-50 cents per batch to dispense versus about 1$ for caps.
That leaves you with 50-70c to refrigerate the entire batch over the month or so that you drink it. It costs more than that, even if you already own a fridge.
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I have a 20# CO2 tank and it cost me 32$ to fill it up. That will dispense 62-87 brews at 5 gallon. So you are looking at a cost of 30-50 cents per batch to dispense versus about 1$ for caps.
That leaves you with 50-70c to refrigerate the entire batch over the month or so that you drink it. It costs more than that, even if you already own a fridge.
Unless you drink your bottled beer hot, you use the same amount of energy to cooldown the same volume of liquid. You just do it 14 oz at a time versus 5 gallons.
So no, if you already own unused refrigerated space (i.e. you have room in your fridge) it does not cost more energy to keg.
I would even go as far as saying that, once a keg is fully refrigerated, it actually acts as mass/volume that will keep your fridge cool even if you open the door. Thus saving energy that would have been used to refrigerate hot air that snuck into the fridge.
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I would even go as far as saying that, once a keg is fully refrigerated, it actually acts as mass/volume that will keep your fridge cool even if you open the door. Thus saving energy that would have been used to refrigerate hot air that snuck into the fridge.
I do drink most of my beer at cellar temperature, because it's not piss and doesn't need to be cold to be enjoyed. But even if I were to chill each bottle before I drank it, that would be like an hour per bottle rather than an entire month. It takes energy to keep things cold, so keeping a batch cold for a month has to take more energy than keeping that batch cold for an hour.
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I would even go as far as saying that, once a keg is fully refrigerated, it actually acts as mass/volume that will keep your fridge cool even if you open the door. Thus saving energy that would have been used to refrigerate hot air that snuck into the fridge.
I do drink most of my beer at cellar temperature, because it's not piss and doesn't need to be cold to be enjoyed. But even if I were to chill each bottle before I drank it, that would be like an hour per bottle rather than an entire month. It takes energy to keep things cold, so keeping a batch cold for a month has to take more energy than keeping that batch cold for an hour.
So just keg it and drink it at cellar temperature then? Win-win and save the 70 cents of the bottle caps?
You are missing something with your last sentence. Yes, it takes energy to keep things cold, but that also includes AIR which is what your empty frige is filled with. Air is actually the worst thing that you can fill your frige with because it escapes when you open the door and you have to refrigerate a new batch of air.
To summarize: If you have room in the fridge that you are already using adding a keg full of beer will cost you an insignificant amount of money to refrigerate.
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My husband and I drink a fair amount of good beer. We probably go through 1-2 six-packs a week (less right now because I'm pregnant and not drinking at all). We've toyed for a while with the thought of brewing our own but I don't know if we'd enjoy it enough for it to be worth the time unless it also saved us money. Any home-brewers here? We were given some of the equipment from a friend but not all of it, so there would be a start-up cost, of course.
Homebrewing is a consummate mustachian pursuit. I and my son compete against each other to make world-class beer for the lowest possible cost. Both of us can make killer brew for about 35 cents/bottle using all-grain. We can make extract brews for about 45 cents/bottle. We re-use beer bottles (I have a garage full..more than I'll ever use.) and we hand-cap them. Some people hate bottling but it's a fun thing to do with someone you like. After you've done it a few times, you get pretty fast. My son and I can bottle 5 gallon batch of about 48 bottles in about 1.5 hours after the bottles come out of the dishwasher.
I prefer to make my own beer WAY more than going to a brewery or a bar and fighting the crowds. If you have a little one on the way, homebrewing will let you and your husband have quality beer and enjoy it in safety and security of your own home while you are with your little one. What most people forget is, if both of you go out for a beer, you gotta add in the cost of a good babysitter, if you can find one at all.
I make beer with a turkey fryer kit (pot and burner) and a 7 gallon plastic bucket. I hand-bottle my beer with a little red cap crimper and beer bottles given to me by friends.
It's possible to make beer so good, that so perfectly suits your own tastes, that you will prefer making your own to buying anything. I like all types, but my faves are stouts and porters, which disappear during the summer months. I HATE the idea of "seasonal stout".
I conjured up a "Simcoe Extract" and "Simcoe All-grain" beer a few years ago that my sons STILL say is the best beer they've ever had. Imagine a crisp, pale wheat ale that's about 1/2 as hoppy as an IPA with about 4.5% ABV. It was a session ale before session ales became all the rage.
I made both batches the same day and was able to split my grain and hops across both batches. I re-used yeast from the last batch. Total cost was about 42 cents/bottle.
Find someone local who is an accomplished homebrewer and get their guidance. See if you can find homebrewers who already have their systems and processes perfected who will work with you to brew styles you like. This will help you figure out what you are trying to do, without spending money on equipment.
It's best if you can find someone who isn't obsessed with spending money on the gear, but is obsessed with making the best possible beer at lowest cost. But if you end up working with someone who has some awesome thousands-of-dollars system, that's OK too. Just don't let yourself get obsessed.
Here's the minimum equipment you need to make beer:
1) A pot. My favorite is a 5 gallon Tramontina I bought on sale at Wal-Mart for $16. It has a small dent in it that's nothing.
2) A 6.5 or 7 gallon food-grade plastic bucket with a tight-sealing top and an airlock. About $15.
3) A bottling bucket. About $15.
4) A bottle cap crimper, recycled beer bottles (crimp type, NOT twist-offs!) and a new bottle cap for each bottle. About $12
5) A siphoning device, some clear plastic hose and a filling wand. $10-$20.
6) Powdered sanitizer, about $2-3.
Total around $80 if you have nothing, less if you already have some items. You only buy these things once. The sanitizer will last several batches. You make it up by the gallon and spray it in the bucket and in your hoses and filling wand before you bottle. There are kits of these parts (no boil pot) available from "Midwest Supply" for $65-$80. That's how I started.
If you have a gas stove, you can make 5 gallons in your kitchen. If you have an electric stove, go with 3 gallons.
If you already have a turkey fryer kit, that's good. You can make 5 gallon batches that way.
Cooling the beer after the boil, so you can put it in the plastic bucket with the yeast, it challenging. We used to buy 3-5 gallons of distilled water and put it in the fridge the day before. Adding the cool water to the batch will get you there, you just have to make sure it's very clean water - you don't want to add bacteria accidentally. (we used to buy bagged ice and had that problem)
After awhile, I made "counterflow chillers" for both me and my son to use. They work very well. You can either buy, or make one for about $75. 3/8" copper tubing is so expensive, it can be cost-effective to just buy one from someone who makes 'em and gets the copper tubing cheaper in bulk.
Please - let us know what you end up doing and how it goes. There are plenty of us out here who homebrew and keep it mustachian and don't go crazy over stainless steel systems.
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If you have a gas stove, you can make 5 gallons in your kitchen. If you have an electric stove, go with 3 gallons.
Previous poster is spot on except for a few tidbits.
I make 5 gallons on my electric stove without a problem.
Highly recommend a benchtop capper versus a handcapper. The benchtop is maybe 10-15$ more expensive but it is much much easier to use.
Finally, I dunck my 5 gallon batch in my laundry tub filled with cold tap water. I replace the water once or twice and, within a couple hours, I get to pitching temperature. I am working on a plate chiller that I am cannibalizing from a tankless water heater.
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If you have a gas stove, you can make 5 gallons in your kitchen. If you have an electric stove, go with 3 gallons.
Previous poster is spot on except for a few tidbits.
I make 5 gallons on my electric stove without a problem.
Highly recommend a benchtop capper versus a handcapper. The benchtop is maybe 10-15$ more expensive but it is much much easier to use.
Finally, I dunck my 5 gallon batch in my laundry tub filled with cold tap water. I replace the water once or twice and, within a couple hours, I get to pitching temperature. I am working on a plate chiller that I am cannibalizing from a tankless water heater.
I'm glad to admit wrongness on the electric stove comment, I have never used my electric stove, I was repeating comments from friends who do it that way. If you are doing 5 gallons on an electric stove, then that's even more mustachian and more awesome!
You've got me interested in trying a benchtop capper, especially if you think it's faster. (but we're pretty fast with the hand crimp capper!)
I can't emphasize enough how important it is to find Local Homebrewing Yodas. They will help you avoid expensive mistakes and you'll get invaluable knowledge. Imagine: 5 gallons/48 bottles (two 24 pack cases) of something you LIKE and WANT to drink, for about 50 cents each. It's a lot of work and takes a long time (I think the fastest fermenting brew I've ever made needed 3 weeks in the bottle before it was ready) but it's rewarding as all-get-out.
I normally make beers from well-proven recipes or my own recipes. My next mission is to replicate the insanely expensive products that sell out before I can get some: Founder's or Stone or Foothills Brewing's "Sexual Chocolate". These products sell for insanely high prices - like $10.99 for a four pack - that I am loathe to pay, even if you can find the stuff in stock anywhere.
Even my revered Two Hearted IPA has gotten expensive - I see it now for mostly $10.99 for a six pack. It's easy to replicate and turn that into a $3 six pack!
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I'm glad to admit wrongness on the electric stove comment, I have never used my electric stove, I was repeating comments from friends who do it that way. If you are doing 5 gallons on an electric stove, then that's even more mustachian and more awesome!
You've got me interested in trying a benchtop capper, especially if you think it's faster. (but we're pretty fast with the hand crimp capper!)
I can't emphasize enough how important it is to find Local Homebrewing Yodas. They will help you avoid expensive mistakes and you'll get invaluable knowledge. Imagine: 5 gallons/48 bottles (two 24 pack cases) of something you LIKE and WANT to drink, for about 50 cents each. It's a lot of work and takes a long time (I think the fastest fermenting brew I've ever made needed 3 weeks in the bottle before it was ready) but it's rewarding as all-get-out.
I normally make beers from well-proven recipes or my own recipes. My next mission is to replicate the insanely expensive products that sell out before I can get some: Founder's or Stone or Foothills Brewing's "Sexual Chocolate". These products sell for insanely high prices - like $10.99 for a four pack - that I am loathe to pay, even if you can find the stuff in stock anywhere.
Even my revered Two Hearted IPA has gotten expensive - I see it now for mostly $10.99 for a six pack. It's easy to replicate and turn that into a $3 six pack!
Again, very good advice!
I don't think its been mentioned but, if you go all grain, you will need to mill your grain or have the store milled for you.
I have a corona mill (50$ maybe) that I modified to use with my power drill. I can SPEED mill about 10# (enough for one recipe) in 5 minutes flat. It is awesome!
I also modified the hopper with an empty plastic protein shake container and duck tape so that it holds 10-12# of grain.
If you are starting out, have the store mill it for you first so that you can try if you like to do all grain vs extract. It's a bit more work but you get complete artistic control of the end product. Also it's cheaper.
Mefla - I made a chocolate stout (with real chocolate) thinking my wife would like it (she likes chocolate). Turns out she is not a fan of stouts.... It tasted pretty funky right after bottling, but after 6 months in the bottle, it was great! Something you would pay 3-4$ a bottle at the store.
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....mefla stuffs here...
I don't think its been mentioned but, if you go all grain, you will need to mill your grain or have the store milled for you.
I have a corona mill (50$ maybe) that I modified to use with my power drill. I can SPEED mill about 10# (enough for one recipe) in 5 minutes flat. It is awesome! I also modified the hopper with an empty plastic protein shake container and duck tape so that it holds 10-12# of grain.
If you are starting out, have the store mill it for you first so that you can try if you like to do all grain vs extract. It's a bit more work but you get complete artistic control of the end product. Also it's cheaper.
Guses, also good call. I've brewed over two dozen times in the last 8 years but I always have the brew store mill my grain for me. When my son buys his grain in bulk, he gets it pre-milled and sealed in the 50lb bag.
One other thing we forgot to mention: you can buy your "base malt" in bulk, like in a 50lb bag, then change the style of beer you brew by adding other grains.
I shop for grain mills but they are so expensive I haven't bought one - I'll have to check out how you put your mill together so frugally.
Mefla - I made a chocolate stout (with real chocolate) thinking my wife would like it (she likes chocolate). Turns out she is not a fan of stouts.... It tasted pretty funky right after bottling, but after 6 months in the bottle, it was great! Something you would pay 3-4$ a bottle at the store.
That's the HUGE advantage of bottling over kegging: If you end up brewing something that just needs more time, you can simply let the bottle sit and if it's not an IPA, it can improve with time. If it's a stout or a porter, it can get absolutely awesome with time. You can turn a screwed-up batch into an amazing brew just by leaving it in the bottle.
I did a Honey Porter extract kit a couple years ago, where the instructions had you boiling the honey. I disagreed, but followed them to the letter. Turns out I was right - you want to do honey at the very END of the boil, not the beginning. After six weeks bottle conditioning, it was awful. I left it alone and after a year, it was way better. After a year and a half, remarkable. I have two bottles left at the two year mark that I'll crack open next time brew son comes home.
I've had friends who've brewed, tried their product after three weeks, then poured it out saying it was terrible. But time in the bottle will cure a lot of beer mistakes. If you get no fermentation, you can even whip up a formula of sugar water and yeast, put a couple drops in and re-cap it. Give it a couple weeks and voila: carbonation. There's a LOT of stuff you can do to prevent the loss of a batch of beer...that's where the true Beer Yoda comes in!
Guses, I wish you and I could brew sometime. I have brew buddies I brew with sometimes and the knowledge exchange is incredible and very rewarding.
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That's the HUGE advantage of bottling over kegging: If you end up brewing something that just needs more time, you can simply let the bottle sit and if it's not an IPA, it can improve with time. If it's a stout or a porter, it can get absolutely awesome with time. You can turn a screwed-up batch into an amazing brew just by leaving it in the bottle.
You can condition in the keg too, but then one of your kegs is tied up for months/years. You might even get less of an effect from yeast autolysis if you condition in a keg.
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.... If you end up brewing something that just needs more time, you can simply let the bottle sit and if it's not an IPA, it can improve with time. If it's a stout or a porter, it can get absolutely awesome with time. You can turn a screwed-up batch into an amazing brew just by leaving it in the bottle.
You can condition in the keg too, but then one of your kegs is tied up for months/years. You might even get less of an effect from yeast autolysis if you condition in a keg.
+1 agreed. I built a SPUNDING VALVE just to try some in-the-keg conditioning. I fear yeast buildup but I'm told you don't have much trouble with that if you secondary in keg rather than primary?
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My husband and I drink a fair amount of good beer. We probably go through 1-2 six-packs a week (less right now because I'm pregnant and not drinking at all). We've toyed for a while with the thought of brewing our own but I don't know if we'd enjoy it enough for it to be worth the time unless it also saved us money. Any home-brewers here? We were given some of the equipment from a friend but not all of it, so there would be a start-up cost, of course.
Homebrewing is a consummate mustachian pursuit. I and my son compete against each other to make world-class beer for the lowest possible cost. Both of us can make killer brew for about 35 cents/bottle using all-grain. We can make extract brews for about 45 cents/bottle. We re-use beer bottles (I have a garage full..more than I'll ever use.) and we hand-cap them. Some people hate bottling but it's a fun thing to do with someone you like. After you've done it a few times, you get pretty fast. My son and I can bottle 5 gallon batch of about 48 bottles in about 1.5 hours after the bottles come out of the dishwasher.
I prefer to make my own beer WAY more than going to a brewery or a bar and fighting the crowds. If you have a little one on the way, homebrewing will let you and your husband have quality beer and enjoy it in safety and security of your own home while you are with your little one. What most people forget is, if both of you go out for a beer, you gotta add in the cost of a good babysitter, if you can find one at all.
I make beer with a turkey fryer kit (pot and burner) and a 7 gallon plastic bucket. I hand-bottle my beer with a little red cap crimper and beer bottles given to me by friends.
It's possible to make beer so good, that so perfectly suits your own tastes, that you will prefer making your own to buying anything. I like all types, but my faves are stouts and porters, which disappear during the summer months. I HATE the idea of "seasonal stout".
I conjured up a "Simcoe Extract" and "Simcoe All-grain" beer a few years ago that my sons STILL say is the best beer they've ever had. Imagine a crisp, pale wheat ale that's about 1/2 as hoppy as an IPA with about 4.5% ABV. It was a session ale before session ales became all the rage.
I made both batches the same day and was able to split my grain and hops across both batches. I re-used yeast from the last batch. Total cost was about 42 cents/bottle.
Find someone local who is an accomplished homebrewer and get their guidance. See if you can find homebrewers who already have their systems and processes perfected who will work with you to brew styles you like. This will help you figure out what you are trying to do, without spending money on equipment.
It's best if you can find someone who isn't obsessed with spending money on the gear, but is obsessed with making the best possible beer at lowest cost. But if you end up working with someone who has some awesome thousands-of-dollars system, that's OK too. Just don't let yourself get obsessed.
Here's the minimum equipment you need to make beer:
1) A pot. My favorite is a 5 gallon Tramontina I bought on sale at Wal-Mart for $16. It has a small dent in it that's nothing.
2) A 6.5 or 7 gallon food-grade plastic bucket with a tight-sealing top and an airlock. About $15.
3) A bottling bucket. About $15.
4) A bottle cap crimper, recycled beer bottles (crimp type, NOT twist-offs!) and a new bottle cap for each bottle. About $12
5) A siphoning device, some clear plastic hose and a filling wand. $10-$20.
6) Powdered sanitizer, about $2-3.
Total around $80 if you have nothing, less if you already have some items. You only buy these things once. The sanitizer will last several batches. You make it up by the gallon and spray it in the bucket and in your hoses and filling wand before you bottle. There are kits of these parts (no boil pot) available from "Midwest Supply" for $65-$80. That's how I started.
If you have a gas stove, you can make 5 gallons in your kitchen. If you have an electric stove, go with 3 gallons.
If you already have a turkey fryer kit, that's good. You can make 5 gallon batches that way.
Cooling the beer after the boil, so you can put it in the plastic bucket with the yeast, it challenging. We used to buy 3-5 gallons of distilled water and put it in the fridge the day before. Adding the cool water to the batch will get you there, you just have to make sure it's very clean water - you don't want to add bacteria accidentally. (we used to buy bagged ice and had that problem)
After awhile, I made "counterflow chillers" for both me and my son to use. They work very well. You can either buy, or make one for about $75. 3/8" copper tubing is so expensive, it can be cost-effective to just buy one from someone who makes 'em and gets the copper tubing cheaper in bulk.
Please - let us know what you end up doing and how it goes. There are plenty of us out here who homebrew and keep it mustachian and don't go crazy over stainless steel systems.
Please share your Simcoe recipe.
thanks,
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Please share your Simcoe recipe.
thanks,
Oh lordy you got me on the spot. :-) Here's the extract version. It's an XPS doc, Win7 has the viewer built-in, you should be able to just click on it to see it...
Some Notes:
The version I've uploaded is the basic recipe. To get the variant that's more like a pale ale, cut the hops down to 1 oz each, 2 oz total. Add them at the same times in the boil. Then do 1 oz dry-hopped in the fermenter. I think that's my personal favorite.
The prices are off-the-shelf from my local brewing supply store for the specific quantities and are worst-case prices (At about 70 cents a bottle). If you want the Double IPA, follow the recipe.
The instructions say bottle condition for 30 days. That's good advice, but 20 days will work too. I think my sons and I had the stuff half-gone in 30 days.
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The instructions say bottle condition for 30 days. That's good advice, but 20 days will work too. I think my sons and I had the stuff half-gone in 30 days.
For best IPA results, bottle condition only until it is carbonated. Sometimes that is as short as 6 days, sometimes as long as 20. It'll really pop for the first month or so in the bottle so get after it ASAP!
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The instructions say bottle condition for 30 days. That's good advice, but 20 days will work too. I think my sons and I had the stuff half-gone in 30 days.
For best IPA results, bottle condition only until it is carbonated. Sometimes that is as short as 6 days, sometimes as long as 20. It'll really pop for the first month or so in the bottle so get after it ASAP!
I hear that refrigeration is a boon for IPAs. That is, they stay fresher much longer if they are refrigerated.
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The instructions say bottle condition for 30 days. That's good advice, but 20 days will work too. I think my sons and I had the stuff half-gone in 30 days.
For best IPA results, bottle condition only until it is carbonated. Sometimes that is as short as 6 days, sometimes as long as 20. It'll really pop for the first month or so in the bottle so get after it ASAP!
I hear that refrigeration is a boon for IPAs. That is, they stay fresher much longer if they are refrigerated.
Skunkfunk, (what a name... :-) ) I have to tell you I've never bottle-conditioned anything for less than 3 weeks, even a pale or a hefe. I think the shortest I've ever done is two weeks waiting in the bottle. However, tell me what you've been able to bottle condition for that short a time - you have me interested in trying it myself.
Guses - +1 on refrigeration after the conditioning phase! I've kept Foothills Cottonwood Frostbite (a delicious black IPA) in the fridge for 3 months and it still be pretty good. After 3, it's still nice, but the character changes enough that no, I wouldn't buy it if it were over 3 months old....
I'll put this question to you guys: either of you drink an IPA over 3 months old? I have, and while it was "drinkable", I would say that the aroma hops really die out and the bittering hop loses some tastes too.
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Skunkfunk, (what a name... :-) ) I have to tell you I've never bottle-conditioned anything for less than 3 weeks, even a pale or a hefe. I think the shortest I've ever done is two weeks waiting in the bottle. However, tell me what you've been able to bottle condition for that short a time - you have me interested in trying it myself.
I have done this with several styles. Most recently I had an IPA ready in 6 days and a pilsner ready in 1 week. My marzen that was bottled the same day took a bit longer. Hefeweizen unfortunately took 20 days. It's a bit of a crap shoot. I haven't figured out how to know how fast it will be so I just crack one after 6 days and depending on if it's ready or how flat it is decide how many more days to wait for the next bottle. I have even had beers as high as 10% ABV (though I rarely brew big beers) ready in a week, so it seems somewhat random. Clarity doesn't seem to be a factor either.
I'll put this question to you guys: either of you drink an IPA over 3 months old? I have, and while it was "drinkable", I would say that the aroma hops really die out and the bittering hop loses some tastes too.
I don't refrigerate entire batches but I try and drink any IPA as fast as possible. After a month at room temp it has lost its luster.
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Please share your Simcoe recipe.
thanks,
Oh lordy you got me on the spot. :-) Here's the extract version. It's an XPS doc, Win7 has the viewer built-in, you should be able to just click on it to see it...
Some Notes:
The version I've uploaded is the basic recipe. To get the variant that's more like a pale ale, cut the hops down to 1 oz each, 2 oz total. Add them at the same times in the boil. Then do 1 oz dry-hopped in the fermenter. I think that's my personal favorite.
The prices are off-the-shelf from my local brewing supply store for the specific quantities and are worst-case prices (At about 70 cents a bottle). If you want the Double IPA, follow the recipe.
The instructions say bottle condition for 30 days. That's good advice, but 20 days will work too. I think my sons and I had the stuff half-gone in 30 days.
Just as a note since I see this often with Beersmith and homebrew calculators in general. Whirlpool additions can add ~15% utilization (Full 90 minute boil is about 35%, but utilization goes down with higher gravity and higher hop load and smaller boil volumes). I know all of the convetional homebrewing information out there says that whirlpool hops add no bitterness, but they do. Both in the form of IBUs as well as 'perceived bitterness' because of the hop flavor of a Pale/IPA/Double IPA.
Your hop additions look bittering heavy to me and you could probably move at least 2oz from the beginning of boil to the end. Obviously if you like the beer as is, that's great, but it could either let you get even more aroma/flavor from your hops without adding more hops (and therefore more $) or you could drop some of the bittering hops out and not add them in later, again saving some money.
As a reference, we use 2 pounds of 15%AA hops for bittering in 500 gallons of our IPA. We use 4 pounds of 15%AA in our Double IPA, but it starts at 17 degrees Plato (1.068 SG). Our Pale Ale is more in line with your starting gravity of 1.047. We use just 1 pound in that.
Hope this helps, cheers.
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Just as a note since I see this often with Beersmith and homebrew calculators in general. Whirlpool additions can add ~15% utilization (Full 90 minute boil is about 35%, but utilization goes down with higher gravity and higher hop load and smaller boil volumes). I know all of the convetional homebrewing information out there says that whirlpool hops add no bitterness, but they do. Both in the form of IBUs as well as 'perceived bitterness' because of the hop flavor of a Pale/IPA/Double IPA.
Definitely varies from person to person how much utilization you get from whirlpool hops. In a small batch you can chill it down to 180 quickly, throw the hops in, and your hopstand will not approach anywhere near 10%.
I've always seen 10% as the rule of thumb starting point.
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Please share your Simcoe recipe.
thanks,
Oh lordy you got me on the spot. :-) Here's the extract version. It's an XPS doc, Win7 has the viewer built-in, you should be able to just click on it to see it...
Some Notes:
The version I've uploaded is the basic recipe. To get the variant that's more like a pale ale, cut the hops down to 1 oz each, 2 oz total. Add them at the same times in the boil. Then do 1 oz dry-hopped in the fermenter. I think that's my personal favorite.
The prices are off-the-shelf from my local brewing supply store for the specific quantities and are worst-case prices (At about 70 cents a bottle). If you want the Double IPA, follow the recipe.
The instructions say bottle condition for 30 days. That's good advice, but 20 days will work too. I think my sons and I had the stuff half-gone in 30 days.
Just as a note since I see this often with Beersmith and homebrew calculators in general. Whirlpool additions can add ~15% utilization (Full 90 minute boil is about 35%, but utilization goes down with higher gravity and higher hop load and smaller boil volumes). I know all of the convetional homebrewing information out there says that whirlpool hops add no bitterness, but they do. Both in the form of IBUs as well as 'perceived bitterness' because of the hop flavor of a Pale/IPA/Double IPA.
Your hop additions look bittering heavy to me and you could probably move at least 2oz from the beginning of boil to the end. Obviously if you like the beer as is, that's great, but it could either let you get even more aroma/flavor from your hops without adding more hops (and therefore more $) or you could drop some of the bittering hops out and not add them in later, again saving some money.
As a reference, we use 2 pounds of 15%AA hops for bittering in 500 gallons of our IPA. We use 4 pounds of 15%AA in our Double IPA, but it starts at 17 degrees Plato (1.068 SG). Our Pale Ale is more in line with your starting gravity of 1.047. We use just 1 pound in that.
Hope this helps, cheers.
lithy - totally agreed with you comments. I struggled with whether or not to send that recipe as-is, but I was afraid if I spent time manually modifying it, I wouldn't get it posted.
When I do my "pale ale" variant, I cut the hops to 1 oz boil, 1 oz aroma, 1 oz dry hopped, total. That's less than half what is specified in the original recipe.
I came up with that recipe because when I and my son "discovered" Simcoe hops, he wanted to do a "blow the top of your head off imperial "quad-like" IPA". So we cooked up that recipe. It was awesome, but not something I wanted to have as a lawnmower session beer. So I simply cut the hops to 25% and dry-hopped in fermenter. And, you are exactly correct, the flavor and hoppiness was PLENTY for me, at a huge cost savings. (Simcoe hops being fairly expensive...)
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Is it cost effective for me? Well, a six pack of commercial beer usually costs in the $15-20AUD range (even the cheap lager's not much below $15), and a slab (24 bottles) of half-decent ale (Coopers or James Squire) is about $40-50AUD, so spending $40AUD or thereabouts on ingredients for an extract brew (or ~$15-20AUD for generic kit and kilo) for 50-55 330-375mL bottles is cheaper overall.
However, I don't do it much anymore. Used to do it fairly regularly at my parents' place, but after I moved out I didn't have space to make beer. I also don't drink as much anymore.
That reminds me that I've got a bottle of ginger beer in the fridge that I made in 2008. It should still taste OK, right?
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...(good stuff here)...
However, I don't do it much anymore. Used to do it fairly regularly at my parents' place, but after I moved out I didn't have space to make beer. I also don't drink as much anymore.
That reminds me that I've got a bottle of ginger beer in the fridge that I made in 2008. It should still taste OK, right?
Well, you are in the same boat I'm in. I've dramatically cut back my beer intake as I've gone on a low-carb lifestyle. It happens - especially for free craft ale - but it's about a pint every other week right now, maybe less sometimes. At that rate, 48 bottles would last me about two years. A stout or porter and that would be great. IPA or pale, not so much!
And sad to confess, same here about not brewing recently either. Work, badassity, resurrecting a broken car and the journey to FIRE, have been all-consuming. That may not be an optimal mix.... hmmm....
Pull out that bottle of ginger beer and give it a whirl. It won't taste the same but I'm certain it won't be bad or spoiled. And if you do, please let us know what you think of it!
I have two bottles of two year old Honey Porter that have gotten excellent. I might open those and post how they are....
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As a Canadian who used to buy $100 of craft beer bottles on a long weekend, yes, absolutely is it cost effective!
I estimate around a buck a bottle that would cost me $6.95 in a cold beer and wine store here. My few hundred dollars in equipment has long been amortized over the 1200 litres I've brewed in the last three years.
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Wow, I thought I brewed a lot! I estimate I've made 150 gallons since I started, a little under 600L.
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Wow, I thought I brewed a lot! I estimate I've made 150 gallons since I started, a little under 600L.
I'm probably pretty close in on that: 5 gallons per brew day, about 26 events so far, 130 gallons. There have been about 5 more events where we brewed 10 gallons, so another 50 gallons. 180 gallons, about 680 liters.
I wish I had recorded the cost, but I didn't go that direction with my recordkeeping. If you allow me a (very) conservative estimate of 45 cents/bottle, I made 1920 12 oz bottles. That's $864 for 1,920 bottles of beer over about an 8 year time span.
I shudder to think what I may have spent on commercially-produced craft brew before I became frugal. Once, to get a growler of something very important to me, I spent $30. I have bought about a dozen growlers and refilled them at least once each, and those growlers are never less than about $12 these days. If you equate that to 12 oz bottles, that's about $2.25/bottle.
Yeah, I'm shuddering on that one. :-(
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I wish I'd kept records of the cost of all the one-time item purchases I made for equipment so that I could assign them to all my batches. I'm moving transcontinentally in two months so I'll have to keep tabs on all of that and see whether Heckler's conjecture is right.
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yes, it is cost effective, although not as cost effective as reducing consumption. (yeah, we might drink too much beer)
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yes, it is cost effective, although not as cost effective as reducing consumption. (yeah, we might drink too much beer)
Dude, don't pay 50$ for carboys!!!! I get them at 5$ or 10$ max each (used).
Even if I were brewing double imperial india pale ales, my cost per batch would be lower than 45$ per. You may want to shop around for your ingredients or buy in bulks. At 20 brew days per year, I am sure you will use them all before they go bad.
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Dude, don't pay 50$ for carboys!!!! I get them at 5$ or 10$ max each (used).
Even if I were brewing double imperial india pale ales, my cost per batch would be lower than 45$ per. You may want to shop around for your ingredients or buy in bulks. At 20 brew days per year, I am sure you will use them all before they go bad.
The $45 is a high average per batch, I know, but just a ballpark for this quick cost analysis. Usually I pay $30, but I do like the hop bombs.
Generally I reuse yeast, so -$10 per batch for that, but I haven't bought bulk because I like each batch to be different.
Granted, I could buy my base malt bulk. Last year, I had a line on free base malt that was coming as a sample from a grain silo!
All my bottles (about 200 of them), came from the $0.10 deposit, or from our favourite sushi restaurant, or or free from friends. Half of my equipment (bucket, carboy, capper) I bought in 1996 when I brewed from a can for a year before giving up due to the crap quality.
I've also got 5 hops plants in the ground now, one of them on it's second year, so I should be getting some good Centennial in the fall! Next year, Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Fuggles and Golding, all free! I paid for only one of the rhysomes.
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I find that beer brewing makes me a bit more snobbish and less likely to like "mainstream craft beers".
I was at a restaurant while on a business trip and took a local IPA at the suggestion of the waitress (which she warned me was "very hoppy"). I was pretty disappointed. It tasted more like an APA than an IPA and the hoppiness was pretty mild. My most recent IPA was way better than this. At 7.75$ for a pint + gratuity, I was expecting better.
Makes me want to skip having a craft beer when I go out...
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It depends on what you're used to, and it's like hot peppers/hot sauces. One person's mild is another person's "fire coming out the ears."
I've munched on raw hops before, and I think they taste great, please just ferment them and call it good. :) Most people think I'm a little bit bonkers when it comes to my IPAs, but I generally find anything with a punny name (Tricerihops, hoptimum, etc) is going to be good.
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I find that beer brewing makes me a bit more snobbish and less likely to like "mainstream craft beers".
I was at a restaurant while on a business trip and took a local IPA at the suggestion of the waitress (which she warned me was "very hoppy"). I was pretty disappointed. It tasted more like an APA than an IPA and the hoppiness was pretty mild. My most recent IPA was way better than this. At 7.75$ for a pint + gratuity, I was expecting better.
Makes me want to skip having a craft beer when I go out...
+1 to these comments. I accept being called a snob, but it's really more of the mmm frugalistic thinking rather than being picky about beer and ale.
The moment you swallow, it's all downhill from there. When your liver starts to process the alcohols and glutens, you are then having to pay for what you have done. In my case, that "payment" also means I've got a >50% chance of getting sick at my stomach over what I'm drinking. It happens when I drink commercial stuff and almost never (possibly once or twice in the years I've been homebrewing) with homebrew.
Plus, I've discovered that when I drink, if I don't have a plan to burn the glutens, it disproportionately turns into belly fat. This effect is MORE pronounced as I continue to lose weight!
Because of this, I'm beginning to be unwilling to pay for commercially-produced ales and beers and more motivated to brew my own. So while money is a big part of it, the fact is I just don't want to get sick or have a big fat belly. That, to me, is pure mustachian badassity, (make for myself what optimizes my own happieness) and has nothing at all to do with being a snob.
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Mefla, do you use clarity ferm or some such to reduce gluten content in your own beers?
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Mefla, do you use clarity ferm or some such to reduce gluten content in your own beers?
I used to use irish moss, but quit doing that, it didn't seem to make much difference. Now for clarity, I just do a secondary ferment. I'm not sure if that changes the gluten content or not.
For some reason the gluten doesn't bother me at all in my homebrews - that's why I don't think it's gluten intolerance that's making me sick.
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Mefla, do you use clarity ferm or some such to reduce gluten content in your own beers?
I used to use irish moss, but quit doing that, it didn't seem to make much difference. Now for clarity, I just do a secondary ferment. I'm not sure if that changes the gluten content or not.
For some reason the gluten doesn't bother me at all in my homebrews - that's why I don't think it's gluten intolerance that's making me sick.
That's pretty strange. A secondary ferment will drop out some proteins and such, particularly if you cold crash or fine it with gelatin or something, but not to the extent that commercial breweries filter it.
Certainly peculiar. Any other trigger foods aside from commercial beer?
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Mefla, do you use clarity ferm or some such to reduce gluten content in your own beers?
I used to use irish moss, but quit doing that, it didn't seem to make much difference. Now for clarity, I just do a secondary ferment. I'm not sure if that changes the gluten content or not.
For some reason the gluten doesn't bother me at all in my homebrews - that's why I don't think it's gluten intolerance that's making me sick.
That's pretty strange. A secondary ferment will drop out some proteins and such, particularly if you cold crash or fine it with gelatin or something, but not to the extent that commercial breweries filter it.
Certainly peculiar. Any other trigger foods aside from commercial beer?
skunkfunk - thanks for asking, but let me preface my comments to you that I really haven't figured this crap out yet. I've been living the keto lifestyle for about a year and a half now (huge improvement in health and insulin resistance) but I'm still figuring out a lot of stuff....
First, it's not universally all commercially-produced brews. It's definitely just "some", and does not seem to be related to beer style (IPA's, hefe's, pales, browns, porters, stouts).
I can have any homebrew, Guinness Stout or *ANY* product from Highland Brewing and I'm A-OK. All I know about that is Guinness is pasteurized and I grew up not far from Highland in Asheville, NC (so the water they use is very familiar to me, and I know they do not add any adjuncts to the water).
On the other hand, I got pretty sick from Mastiff Oatmeal Stout about 2 months ago. (I LOVE Mastiff....I was more upset than I was sick, when I got sick on it.)
So I can't tell you that I really know much about what's going on with this. It's inconsistent enough that I haven't been able to put my finger on it.
I'll tell you one thing, however. It's starting to close in on me to the point that if I want any brew, I'm going to have to make it myself. That doesn't bother me, since these days I'm tightly controlling what I drink anyway....to limit carb intake.
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these days I'm tightly controlling what I drink anyway....to limit carb intake.
Have you made any saisons or beer with brett? Saison yeasts and brett have a tendency to eat up most of the sugar, even the longer chain stuff. For instance, my 1.050 OG saison that finished at 0.996 has an estimated 4.6 carbs, whereas my 1.050 OG APA finishing at 1.012 has an estimated 16.7 carbs.
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these days I'm tightly controlling what I drink anyway....to limit carb intake.
Have you made any saisons or beer with brett? Saison yeasts and brett have a tendency to eat up most of the sugar, even the longer chain stuff. For instance, my 1.050 OG saison that finished at 0.996 has an estimated 4.6 carbs, whereas my 1.050 OG APA finishing at 1.012 has an estimated 16.7 carbs.
I haven't, but that's an EXCELLENT suggestion, especially since I love a good Saison. Plus a Saison might be the only ale I could get the wife to try, if the carbs are really that low. How do you estimate the carb content of homebrew? Is there a way to do with with a Brix?
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these days I'm tightly controlling what I drink anyway....to limit carb intake.
Have you made any saisons or beer with brett? Saison yeasts and brett have a tendency to eat up most of the sugar, even the longer chain stuff. For instance, my 1.050 OG saison that finished at 0.996 has an estimated 4.6 carbs, whereas my 1.050 OG APA finishing at 1.012 has an estimated 16.7 carbs.
I haven't, but that's an EXCELLENT suggestion, especially since I love a good Saison. Plus a Saison might be the only ale I could get the wife to try, if the carbs are really that low. How do you estimate the carb content of homebrew? Is there a way to do with with a Brix?
Yeah, it's just an estimate based on the gravity, so brix is fine. You can either convert it or you could adjust the constants below to use brix. If you're using a refractometer make sure to convert the FG accurately as there is a calculation involved to correct for the alcohol content, and it's huge.
From beersmith:
Calorie_from_alcohol = 1881.22 * FG * (OG-FG)/(1.775-OG)
Calories_from_carbs = 3550.0 * FG * ((0.1808 * OG) + (0.8192 * FG) – 1.0004)
Once you know calories from carbs you can just divide it by 4 to get grams of carbs. In the example above I get from 1.050 OG and .996 FG 19 calories from carbs, meaning I have 4.75 grams.
FWIW I've used WLP566 and Danstar Belle Saison with great results. Belle saison is a beast and will chew through anything at any temperature. It leaves quite a bit more mouthfeel than you'd expect for the FG, though. WLP566 is, I believe, more similar to DuPont and had much more flavor than beer fermented with Belle. Belle works beautifully with a hoppy saison, though, in my experience.
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The SO and I brew a lot of beer. Most of the beer we drink. For christmas we decided to do all grain which has cut down the costs. By far the most cost effective way to do this is the brew in bag method. Our set up is the largest electric turkey frier I could find and a mesh bag. We do the mash boil everything in this pot and then chill it down wth 50 feet of stainless steel tubing. The water that runs through the tube is used for our sanitizing water for everything else so we waste very little water. Sometimes the first water off the chiller I use to make tea because its is damn near boiling at that point.
We also bottle at this point but will probably switch to kegging this winter. Almost all of the bottles we have have been saved by us or family and friends and get used many times. I think we may have spent $20 on bottles for our 20 batches of beer. Nearly any pry off bottles can be reused. I say nearly because the clear bottles are generally not a good idea as well as some bottles have a weird neck that make it difficult to get a decent seal.
All in all we have more fun brewing than it costs us. So its a cost effective hobby in that you get a usable product from your fun. It isnt much cheaper in the long run than buying craft beers but we have made many friends from going to our local homebrew club. So in the end it is awesome!
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Not if you would be working instead. If you acid
Avoid gear acquisition syndrome, it can be cheaper than a weekly trip to the theater, or however you'd like to rationalize it.
It takes 50-200 to get started with basic but good equipment.
All grain is cheaper in consumables per batch. BIAB technique with a bayou classic 13 gallon boil pot will cost you about 100 beyond extract brewing, and saves big on all grain equipment.
Not cost effective.overall, but its fun and easy to rationalize, and makes you popular.
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Not if you would be working instead. If you acid
Avoid gear acquisition syndrome, it can be cheaper than a weekly trip to the theater, or however you'd like to rationalize it.
It takes 50-200 to get started with basic but good equipment.
All grain is cheaper in consumables per batch. BIAB technique with a bayou classic 13 gallon boil pot will cost you about 100 beyond extract brewing, and saves big on all grain equipment.
Not cost effective.overall, but its fun and easy to rationalize, and makes you popular.
I feel like you are trying to tell us something... :P
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Not if you would be working instead. If you acid
Avoid gear acquisition syndrome, it can be cheaper than a weekly trip to the theater, or however you'd like to rationalize it.
....
I feel like you are trying to tell us something... :P
OMG I about fell out of my chair. Guses/patrat you both are hilarious.
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I guess that's what I get for replying with the swype keyboard on an android phone, you get some interesting output if it goes unedited.
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
Really? When I priced out a wort chiller it looked like it would be like $50 of pipe and to get it premade was $60.
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
Really? When I priced out a wort chiller it looked like it would be like $50 of pipe and to get it premade was $60.
I hate to admit, but when I made my counterflow wort chiller, I spent more for the parts than it would have cost to buy an immersion chiller. I made an immersion chiller out of copper pipe for my son and it came in about 10 bucks cheaper than some of the very low-cost online resources for the same item.
That said: I made a counterflow "pipe inside garden hose" wort chiller significantly cheaper than they cost if you buy one pre-made. However, not that much cheaper than a low-cost plate chiller. However, I don't want a plate chiller - they are difficult to clean and the counterflow wort chiller is a snap to clean. (and you don't really have to clean an immersion chiller as long as you rinse it off nicely before you put it away...)
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
Really? When I priced out a wort chiller it looked like it would be like $50 of pipe and to get it premade was $60.
I suppose you could use something other than copper.
Additionally, you can make an MLT for under 30 bucks. The Coleman 48 qt is $15 on sale now, get some voile and cut it up as needed. You're done, you can use the built in drain with that voile lining the cooler.
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Ok, this topic has finally done it...my wife's been an active Mustacian for some time but now I've one and joined. Here's my few cents on the topic:
Like any "is making your own XX cost effective" it comes down to what you compare yourself to. I think my beer is pretty god damn awesome. So when I compare it to a pint at the local brewery downtown or a bomber from the yuppie hippie market up the street, hell yeah. It is worth it.
To be fair, I consider my equipment a sunk cost, since I've had it all for ten years and have received almost all of it as gifts ("Another corney keg! Honey, you shouldn't have!"). We also re-use the brewing stuff a lot. It may be anathema to some, but we've boiled chicken carcasses in my mash tun, used my boil kettle for water bath canning, etc. Just have plenty of PBW on hand...
I buy in bulk, from freshhops.com down in Oregon and my local homebrew shop sells grain at-cost if you get a prepaid grain card. So I get 40lbs or so at a time and keep it in six gallon buckets with screw top lids. I tried growing my own hops but that was a disaster and we pulled them out and have something more productive in that space.
But I'd never suggest that someone get into homebrewing as a way to save money. I do it because I LOVE it. I love playing mad scientist, feeling the pride of sharing a good batch, knowing that I'm helping with our kinda' DIY lifestyle. The fact that I come out ahead on money is a nice benefit (as compared to, say, golf) but the time and effort that goes into it is enough that money, alone, I don't think is enough of a motivation.
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Ok, this topic has finally done it...my wife's been an active Mustacian for some time but now I've one and joined. Here's my few cents on the topic:
Like any "is making your own XX cost effective" it comes down to what you compare yourself to. I think my beer is pretty god damn awesome. So when I compare it to a pint at the local brewery downtown or a bomber from the yuppie hippie market up the street, hell yeah. It is worth it.
To be fair, I consider my equipment a sunk cost, since I've had it all for ten years and have received almost all of it as gifts ("Another corney key! Honey, you shouldn't have!"). We also re-use the brewing stuff a lot. It may be anathema to some, but we've boiled chicken carcasses in my mash tun, used my boil kettle for water bath canning, etc. Just have plenty of PBW on hand...
I buy in bulk, from freshhops.com down in Oregon and my local homebrew shop sells grain at-cost if you get a prepaid grain card. So I get 40lbs or so at a time and keep it in six gallon buckets with screw top lids. I tried growing my own hops but that was a disaster and we pulled them out and have something more productive in that space.
But I'd never suggest that someone get into homebrewing as a way to save money. I do it because I LOVE it. I love playing mad scientist, feeling the pride of sharing a good batch, knowing that I'm helping with our kinda' DIY lifestyle. The fact that I come out ahead on money is a nice benefit (as compared to, say, golf) but the time and effort that goes into it is enough that money, alone, I don't think is enough of a motivation.
Hi honey. <3
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This goes in the opposite direction of DIY, but a friend of mine is the CTO at a Seattle startup called http://picobrew.com
They sell a home appliance that makes perfect craft brew at home every time. I'm not sure the price, I think a bit steep at $1500 or so? All of the recipes are open source, so people geek out on tuning recipes and sharing them. Want a little more hops? No problem
Plus their chief Beerologist has created some pretty stellar recipes, they've won several competitions
I know I'm pretty happy when I visit and can just drink whatever is on tap
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Those are not mistachian purchases - for $1500, you're getting $200-$250 worth of homebrew equipment and slightly less thinking and effort. Cool idea, but between the crazy price and the way they destroy the do-it-yourself aspect of brewing I'm steering clear.
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
Really? When I priced out a wort chiller it looked like it would be like $50 of pipe and to get it premade was $60.
Wow. I think I just put mine together for about $25 or so. I bought an adapter so I could use my sink instead of outdoor faucet, so maybe add a few more bucks on top of that.
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
Really? When I priced out a wort chiller it looked like it would be like $50 of pipe and to get it premade was $60.
I suppose you could use something other than copper.
Additionally, you can make an MLT for under 30 bucks. The Coleman 48 qt is $15 on sale now, get some voile and cut it up as needed. You're done, you can use the built in drain with that voile lining the cooler.
menards has a 5g one for $10 after mail-in rebate. What finally pushed me to make my own.
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Those are not mistachian purchases - for $1500, you're getting $200-$250 worth of homebrew equipment and slightly less thinking and effort. Cool idea, but between the crazy price and the way they destroy the do-it-yourself aspect of brewing I'm steering clear.
I've always been horrified by the idea of this thing. Friends have shared links on Facebook with me, always enthusing "dude, you'd love this!" But no, my brewing is very deliberately an antidote to my generally-staring-at-a-screen day job. It is my time to be a mad scientist and play with fire and boiling water and challenge myself ("How close to my mash target temperature can I get?"). Brewing-via-touch-screen sounds horrible .
Actually I love homebrewing and love that it is becoming more mainstream and I drool over some of the beautiful stainless steel gear you can get now but I'm a little worried that it is going the way of "pay to play" as it does so instead of remaining a bastion of DIY.
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Additionally, you can make an MLT for under 30 bucks. The Coleman 48 qt is $15 on sale now, get some voile and cut it up as needed. You're done, you can use the built in drain with that voile lining the cooler.
menards has a 5g one for $10 after mail-in rebate. What finally pushed me to make my own.
I do brew-in-a-bag all-grain so no cooler needed!
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
Really? When I priced out a wort chiller it looked like it would be like $50 of pipe and to get it premade was $60.
Wow. I think I just put mine together for about $25 or so. I bought an adapter so I could use my sink instead of outdoor faucet, so maybe add a few more bucks on top of that.
What did you make it out of?
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I do brew-in-a-bag all-grain so no cooler needed!
DEFINITELY the budget way to brew all grain. Probably the most cost-effective way to brew in general...given the cost of extract. That's how I did it for years.
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For the DIY'r, you can make a wort chiller and mash/lauter tun pretty cheap compared to what you can buy'm for.
Really? When I priced out a wort chiller it looked like it would be like $50 of pipe and to get it premade was $60.
Wow. I think I just put mine together for about $25 or so. I bought an adapter so I could use my sink instead of outdoor faucet, so maybe add a few more bucks on top of that.
What did you make it out of?
3/8 copper tubing, vinyl tubing, hose clamps, faucet adapter, sink adapter.
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Those are not mistachian purchases - for $1500, you're getting $200-$250 worth of homebrew equipment and slightly less thinking and effort. Cool idea, but between the crazy price and the way they destroy the do-it-yourself aspect of brewing I'm steering clear.
This is true, this is true. I've watched the development of this product for several years now. I'm surprised it's made it down to $1500 each...when I started watching, it was several thousand dollars more expensive than that.
While I'd never buy one of these for myself, I think I have to applaud the fact that it gets precision-created craft brew into the hands of a lot of people with low hassle (A 4 hour brew day? I can't imagine that, at least not yet. But I've never tried to optimize for time.) While my frugal side abhors it, my inner "Craft Beer Evangelist" is pleased....
I'm slightly jealous of the creators and their company - I've always wanted to loft a company with a killer Arduino-based product. These guys sure made it happen. Being able to have my own company that does a cool product is one of the things I want to do when I FIRE.
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Additionally, you can make an MLT for under 30 bucks. The Coleman 48 qt is $15 on sale now, get some voile and cut it up as needed. You're done, you can use the built in drain with that voile lining the cooler.
menards has a 5g one for $10 after mail-in rebate. What finally pushed me to make my own.
I do brew-in-a-bag all-grain so no cooler needed!
I do that too, when I'm making a 3 gallon batch. Making 10+ gallons, though, that bag is damned heavy. I like having the cooler on the ground so I can get the grain out without having to haul it out of an elevated, hot keggle.
Yeah yeah, get some pulleys. I do it outside in open air, don't feel like hauling an a-frame out there either.
A 4 hour brew day? I can't imagine that
How long are your brew days? 4-5 hours seems pretty standard. Can go lower than that if you're willing to do a half hour mash and half hour boil.
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I do that too, when I'm making a 3 gallon batch. Making 10+ gallons, though, that bag is damned heavy. I like having the cooler on the ground so I can get the grain out without having to haul it out of an elevated, hot keggle.
Yeah yeah, get some pulleys. I do it outside in open air, don't feel like hauling an a-frame out there either.
A 4 hour brew day? I can't imagine that
How long are your brew days? 4-5 hours seems pretty standard. Can go lower than that if you're willing to do a half hour mash and half hour boil.
I'm lucky to get done in 6 hours. That time is from the point I review the recipe and start measuring out the grains, to washing and cleaning the last utensil. There's sparge water heatup, sparging, boil and cool-down, with most of the cleaning happening during cool-down.
Cool-down was the suckiest part of the whole brew day for us. Ice bath was how we started. That took us 2-4 hours and we did almost 20 batches that way. Then we made an immersion chiller and that worked better for the next five or six batches. (Son uses the immersion chiller on all the batches he's made at his home.) The immersion chiller shortened the cool-down time to about an hour, but we wanted the process to go faster.
Now: I've got this bitchin' cool (ha) counterflow wort chiller I made some time ago. I used it before it was completely done (not in an enclosure) to cool a batch of ale my older son made and it worked insanely well compared to ice bath chilling and immersion chilling. It took us a good 15 minutes to get the line primed so the hot wort would siphon through the inner coil, but after we got things rolling, it only took about 12 minutes to cool the entire 5 gallons down to 72F.
Since then, I've added a pump, fittings and an enclosure. So it should be much easier to hook up and I should be able to catch the warm output water from the chiller and use it for cleaning.
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I do that too, when I'm making a 3 gallon batch. Making 10+ gallons, though, that bag is damned heavy. I like having the cooler on the ground so I can get the grain out without having to haul it out of an elevated, hot keggle.
Yeah yeah, get some pulleys. I do it outside in open air, don't feel like hauling an a-frame out there either.
A 4 hour brew day? I can't imagine that
How long are your brew days? 4-5 hours seems pretty standard. Can go lower than that if you're willing to do a half hour mash and half hour boil.
I'm lucky to get done in 6 hours. That time is from the point I review the recipe and start measuring out the grains, to washing and cleaning the last utensil. There's sparge water heatup, sparging, boil and cool-down, with most of the cleaning happening during cool-down.
Cool-down was the suckiest part of the whole brew day for us. Ice bath was how we started. That took us 2-4 hours and we did almost 20 batches that way. Then we made an immersion chiller and that worked better for the next five or six batches. (Son uses the immersion chiller on all the batches he's made at his home.) The immersion chiller shortened the cool-down time to about an hour, but we wanted the process to go faster.
Now: I've got this bitchin' cool (ha) counterflow wort chiller I made some time ago. I used it before it was completely done (not in an enclosure) to cool a batch of ale my older son made and it worked insanely well compared to ice bath chilling and immersion chilling. It took us a good 15 minutes to get the line primed so the hot wort would siphon through the inner coil, but after we got things rolling, it only took about 12 minutes to cool the entire 5 gallons down to 72F.
Since then, I've added a pump, fittings and an enclosure. So it should be much easier to hook up and I should be able to catch the warm output water from the chiller and use it for cleaning.
Ah, sounds like you weren't lazy enough. I generally chill it to ~110-130F, which is low enough that the hops quit bittering and then just let it sit until it hits ferm temps. Takes 10-15 minutes of stirring for 5 gallons. That said, it would be awesome to get it down to 72F in 12 minutes. I doubt I have enough water flow for that setup, though.
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Ah, sounds like you weren't lazy enough. I generally chill it to ~110-130F, which is low enough that the hops quit bittering and then just let it sit until it hits ferm temps. Takes 10-15 minutes of stirring for 5 gallons. That said, it would be awesome to get it down to 72F in 12 minutes. I doubt I have enough water flow for that setup, though.
What we figured out is that if you have valves on both the coolant input and the wort input, you can slow down or speed up either one to reach a kind of optimal flow rate for the cooled output wort. For the test, I had to adjust the "hose bib" on the wall at the other end of the hose and we signaled to each other when the temperature of the siphoning wort was low enough. So I put a valve at the coolant-in port on the chiller and now I can just watch the thermometer on the output and adjust to keep from wasting coolant water.
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Some great banter on this thread.
I've been homebrewing for 2years, and for a minor craft beer fiend in NZ it is absolutely cheaper to DIY. I can make good quality 'craft' beer for 1/2 the cost of bland offerings at the supermarket. We've got a fairly high alcohol tax rate and retail beer is essentially controlled by a duopoly, coupled with one of the perfect global climates for brewing (hops are excellent and barley crop yields are the highest in the world) its a no brainer over here....
https://gardenofedenbrewing.wordpress.com/
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Finally got around to using my homemade MLT this past weekend. Worked pretty good. This allgrain stuff is pretty neat. Have an imperial stout fermenting right now!
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No. When I did the math, it was about a break even if you are comparing 12 packs of micro-brew (~1 bottle) to brewing. Numbers change in your favor if you grow your own hops or can source stuff in bulk/group buys. However, the cheapest way to buy beer is not in 12 packs. There are several spots around here that will fill up a corney (5 gallon) keg for $35 with microbrew goodness. A corney comes out to ~55 beers I think. That drops the price per beer way down. You do have to pay for CO2 and perhaps a bit more for electricity, but then boiling beer takes a lot of fuel too, so perhaps it's a wash. Any old fridge or freezer can be converted into a kegerator.
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No. When I did the math, it was about a break even if you are comparing 12 packs of micro-brew (~1 bottle) to brewing. Numbers change in your favor if you grow your own hops or can source stuff in bulk/group buys. However, the cheapest way to buy beer is not in 12 packs. There are several spots around here that will fill up a corney (5 gallon) keg for $35 with microbrew goodness. A corney comes out to ~55 beers I think. That drops the price per beer way down. You do have to pay for CO2 and perhaps a bit more for electricity, but then boiling beer takes a lot of fuel too, so perhaps it's a wash. Any old fridge or freezer can be converted into a kegerator.
"Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?..."
(See 3:45 into the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g )
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You specifically asked about beer, but consider hard ciders. Apple juice and yeast are pretty dang cheap compared to bottled hard cider.
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No. When I did the math, it was about a break even if you are comparing 12 packs of micro-brew (~1 bottle) to brewing. Numbers change in your favor if you grow your own hops or can source stuff in bulk/group buys. However, the cheapest way to buy beer is not in 12 packs. There are several spots around here that will fill up a corney (5 gallon) keg for $35 with microbrew goodness. A corney comes out to ~55 beers I think. That drops the price per beer way down. You do have to pay for CO2 and perhaps a bit more for electricity, but then boiling beer takes a lot of fuel too, so perhaps it's a wash. Any old fridge or freezer can be converted into a kegerator.
"Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?..."
(See 3:45 into the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g )
I was being sarcastic, particularly using the idiotic scene from Monty Python. What I really need to see here is "the math". I read this and figured there's been no homebrewing done.
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No. When I did the math, it was about a break even if you are comparing 12 packs of micro-brew (~1 bottle) to brewing. Numbers change in your favor if you grow your own hops or can source stuff in bulk/group buys. However, the cheapest way to buy beer is not in 12 packs. There are several spots around here that will fill up a corney (5 gallon) keg for $35 with microbrew goodness. A corney comes out to ~55 beers I think. That drops the price per beer way down. You do have to pay for CO2 and perhaps a bit more for electricity, but then boiling beer takes a lot of fuel too, so perhaps it's a wash. Any old fridge or freezer can be converted into a kegerator.
"Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?..."
(See 3:45 into the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g )
I was being sarcastic, particularly using the idiotic scene from Monty Python. What I really need to see here is "the math". I read this and figured there's been no homebrewing done.
http://www.supercenternation.com/beercalc/
According to this I broke even after about 2 years.
The amount of time before I paid back my equipment was about 140 gallons. As I initially started with 5 gallon batches, it was around a hundred hours of labor before I broke even on my equipment.
Additionally, not every batch turns out great. My latest stout I had no less than 3 people tell me it was the best stout they'd ever had. The oktoberfest, well, not so much. A batch could land anywhere in between, as well.
Bottom line, if you won't enjoy it, don't bother. If you will, it's a nice hobby and you may eventually save money if you stick with it, assuming you avoid the upgrade bug. I find myself lusting after a kegerator at the moment.
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Bottom line, if you won't enjoy it, don't bother. If you will, it's a nice hobby and you may eventually save money if you stick with it, assuming you avoid the upgrade bug. I find myself lusting after a kegerator at the moment.
+1 skfk, +1.
I'm building on a freezer kegerator. Found the little 7 cu ft. GE freezer used, $90. Controller, $25. I'm cutting the parts for the wooden collar now. When I start buying the hardware is when I expect it's gonna hurt, badly.
Payback...oh lordy, does something like that even happen on a kegerator when you can bottle using recycled beer bottles "for free"? (ok, you have to pay for caps and there's time invested that you save when kegging, but I figure those costs into the end result and it's still only a few pennies, MAYBE a nickel?)
One thing I was thinking, that I might dispense decaf diet cola with one tap. DW loves that stuff and it's the one (extremely) non-mustachian thing in the house. Have you, or anyone else reading this thread, ever dispensed cola/soft drinks from a kegerator?
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We dispensed sparkling water from it. I'm sure cola wouldn't be much different. Sanitize the keg, fill with water and the right amount of your syrup of choice, force-carbonate from the CO2 tank, and serve.
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We dispensed sparkling water from it. I'm sure cola wouldn't be much different. Sanitize the keg, fill with water and the right amount of your syrup of choice, force-carbonate from the CO2 tank, and serve.
I'm seeing "boxed" syrup these days available at Sam's Club. But I have no clue if that's even possible to use with a kegerator. Anyone care to comment?
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Not a money saver. If you drink Trappist ales and limited edition craft bombers exclusively, you can eventually make it cheaper than you can buy it. But only after you've amortized the cost of the equipment over several batches and improved your quality control to the point where your beer is consistently excellent. Even then, much depends on how you use water for chilling, rinsing bottles and/or kegs for re-use, cleaning and rinsing mash tuns, fermenters, etc., and whether or not you spend money on electricity to control fermentation temperatures, lager your Oktoberfests and Pilsners, etc.
A decade ago when I started brewing, I couldn't find altbiers, saisons, or witbiers with any regularity, so I justified it on those grounds. But now, even the most obscure styles and historical oddities are available from excellent craft brewers.
I love beer brewing, and I am generally of the opinion that learning skills is a good thing, but if you're looking into it to save money, your better off finding savings elsewhere.
It depends how crazy you want to get.
If you are looking to just make cheap, decent beer for a cheap buzz, you can use a "Mr. Beer" (or similar), cheap malt extract, and sugar (or fruit) to make a very cheap brew- far cheaper than the $7/six pack routinely charged for the swill (Bud, etc) you find in stores.
But if you go nuts, buying top of the line equipment, high end hops, bottling equipment/kegs, etc, you can get to the point where it would take years to make up your fixed costs.
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We dispensed sparkling water from it. I'm sure cola wouldn't be much different. Sanitize the keg, fill with water and the right amount of your syrup of choice, force-carbonate from the CO2 tank, and serve.
I'm seeing "boxed" syrup these days available at Sam's Club. But I have no clue if that's even possible to use with a kegerator. Anyone care to comment?
I don't see why not, as long as things are good and sanitary and you don't have to worry about stuff growing in it - which isn't as much of a concern with diet anyway. Or you could do the sodastream approach - carbonate water, then add syrup to it one serving at a time as you serve it. That allows you to switch between flavors or use sparkling water for cocktails if you wish, too.
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We dispensed sparkling water from it. I'm sure cola wouldn't be much different. Sanitize the keg, fill with water and the right amount of your syrup of choice, force-carbonate from the CO2 tank, and serve.
I'm seeing "boxed" syrup these days available at Sam's Club. But I have no clue if that's even possible to use with a kegerator. Anyone care to comment?
Hahahaha! Corny kegs were originally designed to squirt out soda syrup. Yes, easy-peasy. Sanitize the keg, add filtered water and syrup to the right ratio, seal it, force carbonate and serve.
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I think I knew that once...
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We dispensed sparkling water from it. I'm sure cola wouldn't be much different. Sanitize the keg, fill with water and the right amount of your syrup of choice, force-carbonate from the CO2 tank, and serve.
I'm seeing "boxed" syrup these days available at Sam's Club. But I have no clue if that's even possible to use with a kegerator. Anyone care to comment?
Hahahaha! Corny kegs were originally designed to squirt out soda syrup. Yes, easy-peasy. Sanitize the keg, add filtered water and syrup to the right ratio, seal it, force carbonate and serve.
I knew about the "syrup thing" as the original purpose for (what you call) corny kegs. That's why I've always called mine "Pepsi Kegs". Some of them still have the pepsi stickers on 'em.
But what I don't know is what the "magic ratio" is. Back in the day, the pepsi kegs only contained syrup and in the machine, water was added in-line. That's also how the boxed syrup gets used.
what I don't know is the magic ratio, and if the leftover syrup can be stored in the box long-term, nor not.
The boxes kinda look like 5 gallons (I didn't carefully check that). It would be neat if I could do it the way the coke machines do, by adding water in the right ratio. But if I need to do the pre-mixing in the keg, I can do that too. I figure one should use distilled water for that to make sure you don't introduce any bugs into the mix, right?
One other thing that occurred to me: I wonder if one could maybe add bourbon to the keg in the right ratio so you've got a nice burbon-and-coke always perfectly mixed? Yay!
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The ratio depends. Here is one that is 5:1. So 1 gallon of syrup with 5 gallons water = 6 gallons of soda.
http://www.samsclub.com/sams/dr-pepper-syrup-concentrate-1-gal/185502.ip?navAction=push
$22 for 6 gallons. 6 gallons equals 22 liters and change. That means 12 2-liters. Around here, 2-liters sell for $1 on sale regularly. So you get $12 of soda for $22 plus the cost of CO2. Not a good plan.
If you want to do something smaller scale, you can leverage your CO2/Kegerator with a 2 Liter. This is a great way to get the sparkling water you want. You could even use the sodastream syrup without paying through the nose for CO2.
http://www.beveragefactory.com/draftbeer/home_brew/kegs/lbc0100_carbonater.html
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We dispensed sparkling water from it. I'm sure cola wouldn't be much different. Sanitize the keg, fill with water and the right amount of your syrup of choice, force-carbonate from the CO2 tank, and serve.
I'm seeing "boxed" syrup these days available at Sam's Club. But I have no clue if that's even possible to use with a kegerator. Anyone care to comment?
Hahahaha! Corny kegs were originally designed to squirt out soda syrup. Yes, easy-peasy. Sanitize the keg, add filtered water and syrup to the right ratio, seal it, force carbonate and serve.
I knew about the "syrup thing" as the original purpose for (what you call) corny kegs. That's why I've always called mine "Pepsi Kegs". Some of them still have the pepsi stickers on 'em.
But what I don't know is what the "magic ratio" is. Back in the day, the pepsi kegs only contained syrup and in the machine, water was added in-line. That's also how the boxed syrup gets used.
what I don't know is the magic ratio, and if the leftover syrup can be stored in the box long-term, nor not.
The boxes kinda look like 5 gallons (I didn't carefully check that). It would be neat if I could do it the way the coke machines do, by adding water in the right ratio. But if I need to do the pre-mixing in the keg, I can do that too. I figure one should use distilled water for that to make sure you don't introduce any bugs into the mix, right?
One other thing that occurred to me: I wonder if one could maybe add bourbon to the keg in the right ratio so you've got a nice burbon-and-coke always perfectly mixed? Yay!
Corny keg is from a primary manufacturer, Cornelius.
These things are almost indestructible (I did manage to kill one), so experiment to your heart's content. Mix up 5 gallons of Jack and coke if you like. Make carbonated milk. And so forth. I used to hit a tequila bar for obscure mezcals and excellent Mexican bar food, but the house margaritas came out of one of the beer taps and they had mixed it up in a keg.
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Prepare to have your minds blown by the ART of the SMSH!
My son is brewing as I write this and he's doing all-grain batches right now for less than 30 bucks a batch:
$1/lb for 12 lbs grain
$6 for hops
$3 for yeast
$0.25 for sanitizer
$0.50 for propane
$2 for bottle caps
About $24/5 gallon batch. Everything bought in bulk. These are SMSHs: Single Malt Single Hop brews. Grain bill for everything is 2-Row Pale. Works a champ for IPAs or pales.
We could even beat this cost if we re-used the yeast, dialed back the hops and kegged it.
No fancy equipment here: turkey fryer kit, igloo cooler mash tun, homebuilt immersion wort chiller, plastic fermenters.
EDIT: final cost coming in at about $26.50/batch. $13.35/case of 24. About 55 cents/bottle including caps. The Moteuka hops smell awesome.
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Neat. Although if I was doing SMaSH not sure I would use 2row for the grain. And 25 gallons of beer? Holy cow that would be enough for a year I'd bet for me...
Those just standard fermentation buckets? I've been thinking of getting one or two more but looking for a way to do it on the cheap.
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I'm with you - 2-row doesn't bring much flavor IMO. Nothing wrong with using it for 80% of your grain bill though.
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If you made me use a single malt I would probably end up with Vienna or light Munich.
These days I do not go in for complicated grain bills, but most brews end up with an adjunct of some kind: honey blonde, rye IPA, cream ale (corn), oatmeal stout, etc. The adjuncts mostly come from the buckets of bulk grains I buy as part of baking/food supplies and the next batch of honey beer will be made from harvest of one of my hives.
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Neat. Although if I was doing SMaSH not sure I would use 2row for the grain. And 25 gallons of beer? Holy cow that would be enough for a year I'd bet for me...
Those just standard fermentation buckets? I've been thinking of getting one or two more but looking for a way to do it on the cheap.
Well, yeah. 25 gallons is quite a bit much. If the batches are good, we plan to give away a lot of it to friends, so they, too, can participate in the "Educational Hop Experiment".
Yes, they are plain 7.5 gallon fermenting buckets bought at the local homebrew store. Cheap and they work great.
I've had buddies who go even cheaper, fermenting in 1 gallon glass jugs, 1 gallon milk jugs, 1-3 gallon pickle jugs and those big 3-5 gallon plastic water jugs you see used in office water fountains.
All these items are more challenging to clean than a nice food grade bucket, however. We've done enough batches of beer, between the two of us, that these are all easily paid for by now.
If all our brews end up being good, then compared to your average $1.50 bottled craft beer, we'll make about $240 in avoided cost. If you compare to the average $4-$5 taproom pour, we'll earn about $1080 in avoided cost.
We aren't kegging these, but it occurs to me, that's another good reason to keg: You recreate the taproom experience at roughly 1/10th the cost.
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And 25 gallons of beer?
How many of you homebrewers still fit into the clothes you wore in high school? I'm pretty sure that I would quickly turn 25 gallons of delicious homebrew into eight extra inches of waistband.
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Neat. Although if I was doing SMaSH not sure I would use 2row for the grain. And 25 gallons of beer? Holy cow that would be enough for a year I'd bet for me...
Those just standard fermentation buckets? I've been thinking of getting one or two more but looking for a way to do it on the cheap.
Well, yeah. 25 gallons is quite a bit much. If the batches are good, we plan to give away a lot of it to friends, so they, too, can participate in the "Educational Hop Experiment".
Yes, they are plain 7.5 gallon fermenting buckets bought at the local homebrew store. Cheap and they work great.
I've had buddies who go even cheaper, fermenting in 1 gallon glass jugs, 1 gallon milk jugs, 1-3 gallon pickle jugs and those big 3-5 gallon plastic water jugs you see used in office water fountains.
All these items are more challenging to clean than a nice food grade bucket, however. We've done enough batches of beer, between the two of us, that these are all easily paid for by now.
If all our brews end up being good, then compared to your average $1.50 bottled craft beer, we'll make about $240 in avoided cost. If you compare to the average $4-$5 taproom pour, we'll earn about $1080 in avoided cost.
We aren't kegging these, but it occurs to me, that's another good reason to keg: You recreate the taproom experience at roughly 1/10th the cost.
I happily buy bucket fermenters at the local supply shop. When they are ugly or scratched enough that I am uncomfortable fermenting in them, I clean them out really well, buy a gamma lid, and they are used to store bulk beans, grains, etc.
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And 25 gallons of beer?
How many of you homebrewers still fit into the clothes you wore in high school? I'm pretty sure that I would quickly turn 25 gallons of delicious homebrew into eight extra inches of waistband.
Sol, you have an excellent point and that's a good reason I'm fairly careful about what I drink. Most people would call me a "beer snob", as if there's some moral superiority to drinking crappy empty calories. Being picky about what I drink only makes sense - I like telling people "After you swallow, it's all downhill from there...."
I'm a good mustachian and I bike whenever possible. I'm into size 38 jeans now, I think I wore 36's in high school.
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Just bought 4 kegs and ingredients for 12 gallons of beer. $288. Spent $25 on a mini fridge. $54 regulator. Still need hoses and disconnected, co2, o rings, and to construct an insulated box for chilling. This is not cost effective.
Anybody know a good way to clean these or do I need that $30 drill attachment?
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There are several spots around here that will fill up a corney (5 gallon) keg for $35 with microbrew goodness.
Where can I find these places? Just email a brewery?
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My homebrew store would fill corny kegs.
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Just bought 4 kegs and ingredients for 12 gallons of beer. $288. Spent $25 on a mini fridge. $54 regulator. Still need hoses and disconnected, co2, o rings, and to construct an insulated box for chilling. This is not cost effective.
Anybody know a good way to clean these or do I need that $30 drill attachment?
I invested in a lot of the supplies for kegging my home brew when I used to do it about 15 years ago. I still have most of my equipment, some 5gl soda kegs, Co2 bottle with valves hoses connectors etc. .....but I never set up a chiller system.
Once you have it all it does save time carbonating your beer but more stuff to clean.
I think most of the stuff you can buy online if your local brew supplier doesn't have what you need.
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Just bought 4 kegs and ingredients for 12 gallons of beer. $288. Spent $25 on a mini fridge. $54 regulator. Still need hoses and disconnected, co2, o rings, and to construct an insulated box for chilling. This is not cost effective.
Anybody know a good way to clean these or do I need that $30 drill attachment?
Hey skunkster - we here only use sanitizer (starsan or whatever) and slosh it around inside the keg. We remove the valves and disassemble them and soak them in a bowl of sanitizer too. We don't use anything mechanical to clean the keg - are yours so nasty they need some kind of physical cleaning effort?
(added this link after I saw your post:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewQNkjA3sEM
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Just bought 4 kegs and ingredients for 12 gallons of beer. $288. Spent $25 on a mini fridge. $54 regulator. Still need hoses and disconnected, co2, o rings, and to construct an insulated box for chilling. This is not cost effective.
Anybody know a good way to clean these or do I need that $30 drill attachment?
Hey skunkster - we here only use sanitizer (starsan or whatever) and slosh it around inside the keg. We remove the valves and disassemble them and soak them in a bowl of sanitizer too. We don't use anything mechanical to clean the keg - are yours so nasty they need some kind of physical cleaning effort?
I think they were last used for soda. I haven't looked inside yet.
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I think it can be cost effective after a while. Really depends on how you get your equipment though. Mine is all craigslist or made myself.
Now if you really like the tinkering side of things you can actually make money by a sub-hobby of this hobby, brewing equipment. I've made a few brewing kettles and I'm looking at starting to build electric breweries as a bit of a side gig, or at least to sell my current rig and upgrade ;)
I also did my whole kegging setup and made money on it, buying 50 cornie kegs and reconditioning each one and selling for a profit. Kept 10 kegs essentially for free (actually paid for with the sweat of my brow though...)