Home Beer Brewing - Cost Effective?

Home beer brewing is more a labor of love than anything else. Home beer brewing hobbyists love to experiment with different types of beers, they love learning the art of brewing beer and they love to share their new batches with friends and relatives. For the most part, home beer brewers are not overly concerned with the expense of creating their own beer. Some people however, do wonder if brewing your own beer at home is worth the expense. Follow along as we take look at a few of the factors and growing your own beer versus buying it at the local beer store.

First of all, if you're simply trying to better the prices that you get from the large brewers and their products such as Old Milwaukee, Miller Genuine Draft, Labatt, Anheuser-Busch, Inc. or Miller Brewing Company, then you have to make a lot of beer to overcome the sheer volume that these beer companies make and market. They have the economies of scale on their side and it will take a while before you really start save money.



On the other hand, if you look at the specialty beers are crafted beers then you can definitely save a lot of money by making your own homebrew beer. And the unique aspect of bring your own beer is that, once you understand the process and have some practice, you can begin to tweak the recipes to create a beer that is unique and fits your taste buds exactly. This is one of the most remarkable aspects of home beer brewing, the ability to create your own brand of beer.

When it comes to some basic costs here is what you are likely to see on costs when you start to brew your own beer:

* a Home brewing kit generally costs about $100 including the ingredients. The normal fermenter will make 6 gallons of beer.

* 6 gallons of beer is the equivalent of 64 12oz bottles. 64 bottles for $100, comes to about 1.56 a beer.

* at a local homebrew store or to buy online you can buy your next beer ingredient kit to start another 6 gallon batch for between $27 and $40.

* in general terms to brew 64 12oz bottles of beer the cheaper kits will cost you .42 cents per bottle and the most expensive beer kits will cost .63 cents per bottle.

* if you go for a can of Hopped Wort and Dextrose or even table sugar you may get the costs down to 30c a bottle.

Here are some other things to consider to lower your costs:

* If you don't want to buy a new equipment to make it at home you can use a U-brew facililty. These locations have all of the equipment and ingredients you need and a book of recipes for you to follow or you can create your own. You do all of the work yourself just like with home equipment and then come back two or three weeks later to bottle your brew and take it home.

* Some people like to grow their own hops and that can also lower your costs.

* Gluten free beers are expensive but necessary for a celiac who loves beer. You can make homemade gluten free beer at a much lower cost while you enjoy this great hobby.

* get family and friends to start saving bottles for you, if you plan to bottle your beer. Keep in mind that you will need the kind of bottles that use pryoff caps only (no threaded tops). and the good part is that you can recycle the bottles many times keeping our costs down.

So there you have it as far as costs are concerned in home beer brewing. If you do it right you can save a lot of money, especially if you and your friends drink a lot of beer! But more than anything else, home beer brewing hobbyists can use the money they save to buy a different kind of beer kit to experience a brand-new taste. Whatever your reason for home beer brewing, the love of a good beer is probably at the top of everyone's list.

by: Lee MacRae

All grain Barleywine

Recipe Type All Grain
Fermentables
12 lbs German Pils malt
3 lbs Belgian Munich malt
12 oz British Chocolate malt
2 lbs British Medium Crystal malt

Hops
1 oz Eroica (60 min)
2 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)
1 oz. Kent Goldings (30 min)
.5 oz Kent Goldings (20 min)
.5 oz. Kent Goldings (finish)

Other
Irish Hops at 15 min

Yeast Dry Champagne Yeast (secondary)

Procedure: The amount of grain here maxed out my bucket tun sparger. The alcohol here is only about 9%, but then I sparged only enough water to accumulate about 6 gallons for the boil.

Sparging for an 8 or 9 gallons and then reducing to around 6 gallons when adding the hops should add a boost to the alcohol content. Also, the Irish ale yeast brought the fermentation down to the final gravity.

The champagne yeast brought no further fermentation and could be eliminated. Brewed as a single decoct. Strike temp of 144. Main mash at 154.

Abbey Beer

Recipe Type All Grain
Fermentables
9 lbs U.S. 2-row
1.5 lbs Munich malt
0.5 lbs 60L (or darker) crystal malt
.5 oz of chocolate malt
1 lbs of honey or dark brown sugar

Hops
7 AAU bittering hops, a mix of hallertauer and kent goldings (60 minute boil)

Yeast Chimay yeast of course

Procedure: Add hops at 60 minutes before end of boil. You are not looking for high hop bitterness, nor should there be noticeable hop aroma.
If you're not an all-grain brewer, then don't use the 2-row or munich malt but use, say, 7 pounds light, unhopped dry malt extract instead. Use crystal and chocolate malt for color.

The honey or brown sugar will boost the starting gravity as well as contribute to the flavor and body of the finished beer. You might try doing the fermentation at a relatively "warm" temperature, say, 70 to 75 degrees F.

This should lead to more of that Chimay flavor in the finished beer. And, don't drink the beer all at once, as its flavor will evolve in the bottle over time.

Privacy Policy

This website/blog uses third-party advertising companies to serve ads when visiting this site. These third parties may collect and use information (but not your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, you can visit Google's Advertising and Privacy page.

If you wish to opt out of Advertising companies tracking and tailoring advertisements to your surfing patterns you may do so at Network Advertising Initiative.

Google uses the Doubleclick DART cookie to serve ads across it's Adsense network and you can get further information regarding the DART cookie at Doubleclick as well as opt out options at Google's Privacy Center

Privacy

I respect your privacy and I am committed to safeguarding your privacy while online at this site beerbrewingrecipes.blogspot.com. The following discloses how I gather and disseminate information for this Blog.

RSS Feeds and Email Updates

If a user wishes to subscribe to my RSS Feeds or Email Updates (powered by Feedburner), I ask for contact information such as name and email address. Users may opt-out of these communications at any time. Your personal information will never be sold or given to a third party. (You will never be spammed by me - ever)

Log Files and Stats

Like most blogging platforms I use log files, in this case Statcounter. This stores information such as internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring, exit and visited pages, platform used, date/time stamp, track user’s movement in the whole, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. This blog doesn't use cookies. However, some of my business partners use cookies on this site (for example - advertisers). I can't access or control these cookies once the advertisers have set them.

Links

This Blog contains links to other sites. Please be aware that I am not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. I suggest my users to be aware of this when they leave this blog and to read the privacy statements of each and every site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Blog.

Advertisers

I use outside ad companies to display ads on this blog. These ads may contain cookies and are collected by the advertising companies and I do not have access to this information. I work with the following advertising companies: Google Adsense, ROI Rocket, Project Payday. Please check the advertisers websites for respective privacy policies.

Contact Information

If you have any questions or concerns please contact Deron deron@pointu2.com. This privacy policy updated June 2009

Bass Ale

Category Pale Ale
Recipe Type Extract

Fermentables
7 lbs Steinbart's American Light Extract
1 lbs Crystal malt 40L
1 lbs Dark brown sugar ; be damned German purity law!

Hops
1 oz Northern Brewer (60 minute boil)
1 oz Fuggle (30 minute boil)
.5 oz Fuggle (10 minute boil)
.5 oz Fuggle (15 minute seep)

Yeast yeast

Procedure Steep crystal malt and remove grains before boil begins. Add malt extract and brown sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for 60 minutes. Add 1 ounce Northern Brewer at beginning of boil, 1 ounce of Fuggle at 30 minutes and 1/2 ounce of Fuggle for the last 10 minutes.

Turn off heat and add final 1/2 ounce Fuggle. Let steep for 15 minutes. Cool. Pitch yeast.