How expensive is brewing? Is it cheaper than buying beer at the store? Let me start by asking you a couple questions as well. What beer do you like? How much are you willing to spend? If all you're interested in are the standard six-packs that are being sold here, then by all means stop right there and go buy that pig swill at the store. I apologize to pigs everywhere by suggesting they'd even drink it. Clearly I'm not opinionated. Now that we've got this out of the way, let's focus on the actual aspect of brewing and the costs.
Brewing is much like cooking. To start you need equipment and that means that you can make it as expensive as you want it to be. If you're already into cooking, chances are you have most of what's needed. Many people seem to start with the 5 gallon batches. Right now I like 1-gallon recipes. Time-wise there's no difference, as you still have to boil for at least 1 hour. And whether you have 3 lbs or 15 lbs of grain, the mash will still take about 1 hour as well. The real difference is that I can brew something new or intriguing and if it doesn't work out... Well at the most I might waste 10 bottles of beer as opposed to 50. There's of course a difference in equipment as well. We already had a couple stock pots that will easily let me do 1- and 2-gallon batches. If I want to upscale to 5-gallon brews, then I'll have to get a bigger kettle (or 2). Taking into account that these bigger pots might take a looooooong time to come to a boil on our glass-top stove, I'd be looking at getting either propane burners or electrical heating elements. My upfront costs have been really low so far, because we decided to stay small for now.
I got all the necessary equipment to brew in a 1-gallon kit I received as a gift (excluding ingredients such as grain and yeast):
Aside from the above, we also needed the 2 aforementioned stock pots (at least 1-gallon) a big spoon (for stirring), some measuring cups and a fine-mesh sieve. Again, this was equipment we had. If I'd only use that equipment and would get the grains and yeast at the LHBS (Local Home-Brew Store), it would costs us about $0.50 per 12oz bottle. Please point me to a store where they sell (drinkable) beer for that low of a price.
I did want to get some other essential items to improve and shorten the brewing process. The cheapest way to brew beer from all grains is to use the brew in a bag (biab) method. Basically you can skip a separate mash tun as everything takes place in your boiling kettle. I went the mash tun route and here's the equipment you need:
Brewing is much like cooking. To start you need equipment and that means that you can make it as expensive as you want it to be. If you're already into cooking, chances are you have most of what's needed. Many people seem to start with the 5 gallon batches. Right now I like 1-gallon recipes. Time-wise there's no difference, as you still have to boil for at least 1 hour. And whether you have 3 lbs or 15 lbs of grain, the mash will still take about 1 hour as well. The real difference is that I can brew something new or intriguing and if it doesn't work out... Well at the most I might waste 10 bottles of beer as opposed to 50. There's of course a difference in equipment as well. We already had a couple stock pots that will easily let me do 1- and 2-gallon batches. If I want to upscale to 5-gallon brews, then I'll have to get a bigger kettle (or 2). Taking into account that these bigger pots might take a looooooong time to come to a boil on our glass-top stove, I'd be looking at getting either propane burners or electrical heating elements. My upfront costs have been really low so far, because we decided to stay small for now.
I got all the necessary equipment to brew in a 1-gallon kit I received as a gift (excluding ingredients such as grain and yeast):
- Fermentor (1 gallon jug basically)
- Airlock
- Racking cane and vinyl tubing (to get the beer out of the fermentor)
- Sanitizer
- Thermometer
Aside from the above, we also needed the 2 aforementioned stock pots (at least 1-gallon) a big spoon (for stirring), some measuring cups and a fine-mesh sieve. Again, this was equipment we had. If I'd only use that equipment and would get the grains and yeast at the LHBS (Local Home-Brew Store), it would costs us about $0.50 per 12oz bottle. Please point me to a store where they sell (drinkable) beer for that low of a price.
I did want to get some other essential items to improve and shorten the brewing process. The cheapest way to brew beer from all grains is to use the brew in a bag (biab) method. Basically you can skip a separate mash tun as everything takes place in your boiling kettle. I went the mash tun route and here's the equipment you need:
1. Sanitizer - $10
You don't want to sterilize, but sanitation is an absolute necessity. Usually you only want the one yeast strain to grow. This no-rinse Star San set me back around $10 for 8 oz, but you only need 0.5 oz for 5 gallons of water. The sanitized water is used for bottles, fermentors, tubing, etc... basically anything that comes into contact with the wort once it's chilled.
2. Mash tun - $80
A kettle will do, but I bought a 10-gallon cooler (food-grade), which cost around $50 or so. I replaced the plastic spigot with a ball-valve and installed a bazooka screen (to prevent the grains from going out the valve). The total to create the mash tun was around $75-80. They normally sell those for $130 at a minimum.
3. Wort chiller - $80
After boiling the wort it's critical to cool it down to yeast-pitching temperature (65-75 F) as quickly as possible. Before I used to put the pot with near-boiling wort in an ice bath in the sink. It would take an hour or more to cool down. You can buy wort chillers, but I made mine myself. It was cheaper (at least $30-40) and it was fun too. Now I can chill boiling liquid to yeast pitching temps in about 4-5 minutes.
4. High-precision scale - $7
Hops are measured in fractions of ounces (or preferably in grams - don't get me started on the U.S. measuring system) and unless you have a scale that can handle that, you'll have to get an additional one. I chose this jeweler's scale, which does exactly what's required for the low price of $6.95!
5. Refractometer - $30
I got this one from Amazon for about $30, but there are many different models out there. Mine is Brix-scale only and having a dual-scale (specific gravity and brix) would be nice, but there are lots of online calculators out there that will convert the values from one to the other. Oh, what does it do? Well as explained in one of the earlier posts, the refractometer will measure the specific gravity of a liquid, which basically boils down to the sugar content. Alcohol present in the liquid will lead to inaccurate results, hence why most people will use a hydrometer for readings from the fermentor. This handy calculator will make that obsolete!
6. Fermentors, caps/stoppers, airlocks - $10-20
The 1 gallon fermentors are exactly the same as the 365 Organic apple juice we buy at Whole Foods. So guess how those are being reused! I had to buy some extra airlocks and stoppers (nr 6 stoppers seem to work best on these jugs) and that's about an extra $1 per jug or so.
7. Digital thermometer - $20-50
Preferably water- and thus beer-proof, it makes it really handy for instant readings. We already had one we use for making caramel and ice cream.
8. Spray bottle - $2?
Get one and fill it with sanitizer. Super cheap but oh so handy!
9. Funnel with mesh - $10
I use this funnel with a backsplash to fill the fermentors once the wort has cooled down. It has a small mesh, but I also use a grain bag, which I hang over the funnel. This captures most of the hops and all the spices (if any), which results in less trub in the fermentor.
10. Bottling bucket - $10
This is a food-grade plastic bucket with a spigot. In goes the fermented beer and the priming sugar (to carbonate the beer in the bottles) and once (gently!) mixed it goes into the bottles. Cap those and let them sit for at least 2 weeks (depending on the beer style this could be a lot longer).
11. Auto-siphon - $10
The racking cane that came with the kit was a pain to work with. Basically it's used to siphon the beer out of the fermentor. You don't want to pour it as a) it would result in to much oxygenation (bad, m'kay?) and b) there would be too much trub (dead yeast cells, etc) in there as well. The auto-siphon is basically 2 plastic tubes, one inserted into the other and you use it as a pump to extract the beer from the jugs.
12. Bottles, caps and bottle capper - $20+
It's literally impossible to keg 1-gallon batches, so bottling it is for me. I need about 8-10 bottles (12 oz) per batch. Save some money and reuse commercial beer bottles or ask family and friends to save them for you! Rinse them out as soon as you're done with them and the clean up will be really easy. I got one of the standard bottle cappers, which is around $17. Caps were a couple dollars for a bag of 200 or so, if I recall correctly.
Some of it is definitely optional. Do you need a refractometer? No, but then you won't know approximately how much alcohol is in the beer. You also won't know precisely when the fermentation is over. If you wait long enough, it'll be fine of course. Kettles, a thermometer and the sanitizer as well as the fermentors and airlocks are an absolute necessity.
So what's next on my wish list? A long laundry list of items, that's for sure. It ranges from bigger kettles and electrical heating elements to a champagne corker (for those Belgian beer bottles) and a temperature controlled fermentation chamber. All in good time!
The final elements are: water, yeast and grain (plus other ingredients depending on the recipe). In general my grain bill is around $4 per batch and yeast ranges from $2 (dry) to $8 (liquid).
Oh yeah, here's the label for my tripel! I dubbed it Mont Saint Michel because it uses a photo I took of the cloister at ... right, Mont Saint Michel.
You don't want to sterilize, but sanitation is an absolute necessity. Usually you only want the one yeast strain to grow. This no-rinse Star San set me back around $10 for 8 oz, but you only need 0.5 oz for 5 gallons of water. The sanitized water is used for bottles, fermentors, tubing, etc... basically anything that comes into contact with the wort once it's chilled.
2. Mash tun - $80
A kettle will do, but I bought a 10-gallon cooler (food-grade), which cost around $50 or so. I replaced the plastic spigot with a ball-valve and installed a bazooka screen (to prevent the grains from going out the valve). The total to create the mash tun was around $75-80. They normally sell those for $130 at a minimum.
3. Wort chiller - $80
After boiling the wort it's critical to cool it down to yeast-pitching temperature (65-75 F) as quickly as possible. Before I used to put the pot with near-boiling wort in an ice bath in the sink. It would take an hour or more to cool down. You can buy wort chillers, but I made mine myself. It was cheaper (at least $30-40) and it was fun too. Now I can chill boiling liquid to yeast pitching temps in about 4-5 minutes.
4. High-precision scale - $7
Hops are measured in fractions of ounces (or preferably in grams - don't get me started on the U.S. measuring system) and unless you have a scale that can handle that, you'll have to get an additional one. I chose this jeweler's scale, which does exactly what's required for the low price of $6.95!
5. Refractometer - $30
I got this one from Amazon for about $30, but there are many different models out there. Mine is Brix-scale only and having a dual-scale (specific gravity and brix) would be nice, but there are lots of online calculators out there that will convert the values from one to the other. Oh, what does it do? Well as explained in one of the earlier posts, the refractometer will measure the specific gravity of a liquid, which basically boils down to the sugar content. Alcohol present in the liquid will lead to inaccurate results, hence why most people will use a hydrometer for readings from the fermentor. This handy calculator will make that obsolete!
6. Fermentors, caps/stoppers, airlocks - $10-20
The 1 gallon fermentors are exactly the same as the 365 Organic apple juice we buy at Whole Foods. So guess how those are being reused! I had to buy some extra airlocks and stoppers (nr 6 stoppers seem to work best on these jugs) and that's about an extra $1 per jug or so.
7. Digital thermometer - $20-50
Preferably water- and thus beer-proof, it makes it really handy for instant readings. We already had one we use for making caramel and ice cream.
8. Spray bottle - $2?
Get one and fill it with sanitizer. Super cheap but oh so handy!
9. Funnel with mesh - $10
I use this funnel with a backsplash to fill the fermentors once the wort has cooled down. It has a small mesh, but I also use a grain bag, which I hang over the funnel. This captures most of the hops and all the spices (if any), which results in less trub in the fermentor.
10. Bottling bucket - $10
This is a food-grade plastic bucket with a spigot. In goes the fermented beer and the priming sugar (to carbonate the beer in the bottles) and once (gently!) mixed it goes into the bottles. Cap those and let them sit for at least 2 weeks (depending on the beer style this could be a lot longer).
11. Auto-siphon - $10
The racking cane that came with the kit was a pain to work with. Basically it's used to siphon the beer out of the fermentor. You don't want to pour it as a) it would result in to much oxygenation (bad, m'kay?) and b) there would be too much trub (dead yeast cells, etc) in there as well. The auto-siphon is basically 2 plastic tubes, one inserted into the other and you use it as a pump to extract the beer from the jugs.
12. Bottles, caps and bottle capper - $20+
It's literally impossible to keg 1-gallon batches, so bottling it is for me. I need about 8-10 bottles (12 oz) per batch. Save some money and reuse commercial beer bottles or ask family and friends to save them for you! Rinse them out as soon as you're done with them and the clean up will be really easy. I got one of the standard bottle cappers, which is around $17. Caps were a couple dollars for a bag of 200 or so, if I recall correctly.
Some of it is definitely optional. Do you need a refractometer? No, but then you won't know approximately how much alcohol is in the beer. You also won't know precisely when the fermentation is over. If you wait long enough, it'll be fine of course. Kettles, a thermometer and the sanitizer as well as the fermentors and airlocks are an absolute necessity.
So what's next on my wish list? A long laundry list of items, that's for sure. It ranges from bigger kettles and electrical heating elements to a champagne corker (for those Belgian beer bottles) and a temperature controlled fermentation chamber. All in good time!
The final elements are: water, yeast and grain (plus other ingredients depending on the recipe). In general my grain bill is around $4 per batch and yeast ranges from $2 (dry) to $8 (liquid).
Oh yeah, here's the label for my tripel! I dubbed it Mont Saint Michel because it uses a photo I took of the cloister at ... right, Mont Saint Michel.