Cost of the boil.

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Chippy_Tea

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As most of you know I don't brew beer and being a wine maker I don't boil so I was wondering how much has the increase in the price of gas and electric put on a batch of beer and how much will the predicted rise effect the price.
 
As most of you know I don't brew beer and being a wine maker I don't boil so I was wondering how much has the increase in the price of gas and electric put on a batch of beer and how much will the predicted rise effect the price.

It's really not a huge amount.unless you are brewing every other day. Assume you have a 2500w element running at full whack for two hours. That's 5kwh (about £1 for me at the moment, and will be about £1.35 after the rises). Obviously as a percentage, that's dreadful, but it's pretty negligible in the grand scheme of things. I'm not going to work out how much my ferm and keg fridge are costing me.

It's the standing charge where they are really gouging us.
 
about £1 for me at the moment, and will be about £1.35 after the rises

That's not too bad i thought it was going to be a fair bit more, when you consider how much you are saving compared to buying beer of the same quality you make a pound or two per batch is not a big issue.
 
Hmm, so I reckon 2.5 hours boiling/heating mash/sparge water.
At 3kW (gas hob) thats 3p x 2.5 x 3 = 23p.
That'll increase to 57p post fix end in September, or just under 1p/pint.
Hop prices still dominate the overall cost.

Grain - base malt 5kg at £0.80/kg = £4 per batch + speciality/adjucts, say another £2
Avg hop price, varies massively by quantity, £10 - £50/kilo, nearer the £50 for homebrewers, so £2.50 - £20 per batch
(As an aside - Labour at minimum wage - varies by efficiency but probably around £50!)
 
It's the standing charge where they are really gouging us.

A bit off topic and maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t get the hike in standing charges.
I appreciate that wholesale Gas prices are through the roof so it makes sense the retail prices need to go up too, but why the standing charge? It costs my supplier the same to get the fuel supplied to me today as it did last week, last month or last year!
 
A bit off topic and maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t get the hike in standing charges.
I appreciate that wholesale Gas prices are through the roof so it makes sense the retail prices need to go up too, but why the standing charge? It costs my supplier the same to get the fuel supplied to me today as it did last week, last month or last year!

Because they are robbing bastards, and they get away with it.
 
A bit off topic and maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t get the hike in standing charges.
I appreciate that wholesale Gas prices are through the roof so it makes sense the retail prices need to go up too, but why the standing charge? It costs my supplier the same to get the fuel supplied to me today as it did last week, last month or last year!

My fixed price deal ends at some stage this month so I was looking at other deals and noticed the hike in standing charge, as well as the increase in unit price. I wondered whether this is something to do with companies not wanting to enter into new fixed contracts before the cap increases, so they're deliberately forcing people into variable until they (and the futures market) know a bit more about where energy prices are going.
 
A 4 gallon brew has been costing me about £1.30 beginning to end (although that also includes fridge and freezer). A little bit more after the last price increase and about £1.55 after april's rise. So not bad. Standing charge has gone up a lot though - 28p/day to 54p/day on april 1st. Can't avoid that anyway, brewing beer or not.
I believe if you use bottled gas it's way more expensive per brew.
 
A bit off topic and maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t get the hike in standing charges.
I appreciate that wholesale Gas prices are through the roof so it makes sense the retail prices need to go up too, but why the standing charge? It costs my supplier the same to get the fuel supplied to me today as it did last week, last month or last year!
My wife contacted Scottish Power as our standing order amount is going up 100%. Their excuse was to balance out the loss of supplying power to thousands of new customers forced on them due to smaller companies going under.
But as Brew_DD2 says they are robbing bastards.
On a side note if anyone interested. Just had a smart meter fitted and to run a B2B heat pad costs £0.01 pence per hour.
 
I had the plugin electricity monitor for the first few all grain brews I done with my burco as I was in money saving mode. It averaged 6kwh for a brewday and unit price of 21p. Now I don't monitor that side of it as the end product is usually worth it. Even now with the increase it won't put off
 
Think its all relative. Cost of electricity is going up for everyone commercial brewers too so the cost will be put on a pint . Most of us don't brew to save money but I think the cost per homebrewed pint and that of a Pub pint will work out as the same % saving as per before . In essence dearer for everyone
 
A 4 gallon brew has been costing me about £1.30 beginning to end (although that also includes fridge and freezer). A little bit more after the last price increase and about £1.55 after april's rise. So not bad. Standing charge has gone up a lot though - 28p/day to 54p/day on april 1st. Can't avoid that anyway, brewing beer or not.
I believe if you use bottled gas it's way more expensive per brew.
I use bottled gas one way or another (we're not on mains gas so the cooker also runs off a bottle) and don't find it too bad. a 13 of Propane used to be around 25 euros and now it's nearly 30 euros, but when I use my gas ring, I get more than 20 brews of 25+ litres out of it ( I use an electric Burco-like kettle to heat my mash and sparge water) so I reckon it would be about the same as all-electric. I don't like to have more than 15 litres on the cooker top anyway. I think it's important to get a ring with some kind of control- mine has three burner sections, each with its own tap, and that works just fine.
Quite frankly, if the only way I could brew was over an open fire, then I'd find a way! I might stop short of heating stones and chucking them in the brew, though.
 
All grain NEIPA. Still took temp up to 90°C for a few mins to get a hot break, then proceeded to the whirlpool as normal. No boil hops.
Biggest challenge is reflecting the change in volume loss. You evaporate less water, and so need to reflect this in your recipe.
 

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