whats your most economic brew per pint

[Godsdog]

as in the title wether its kits mini mash smash or full all grain whats the cheapest you can brew a pint for,factoring in power for a mash and a 90 minute boil and such if you go that way :whistle:

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Picked up a Young's Harvest Scottish Heavy kit at an auction for £4, 2 bottles Potter's malt extract in H&B's penny sale, £4.86, one tin of treacle from B&M, £0.75, and 300g Cooper's BE1, again, sourced at an auction, say about £0.60. The water cost £4.20 from Morrisons and priming sugar about £0.03. That's £14.44 and I got 38 bottles (500ml) out of it, which works out at £0.38 per bottle, or £0.76 per litre or roughly £0.43 per pint.
I haven't included the cost of crown caps; factoring them in at 2p per cap takes the total to £15.20, £0.80 per litre, £0.45 per pint.

 

[Leon103]

Surely AG bulk buying, low amount of hops and reused yeast.

 

[wfr42]

I've got a youngs harvest scottish heavy kit in my records list at 25p/500ml.

Tesco clubcard boost on the kit and bke and 500g of dark dme.

The geterbrewed custom kits I've ordered have come in about 40p/500ml (I haven't factored in production costs) and am reusing a yeast for one of them.

 

[MickDundee]

It most likely doesn't count, but my SMaSH I'm due to bottle on Monday cost me less than £4 for 16L. Assuming I lose a litre to trub that's about 13p a bottle. I'm not bothering counting cost of electricity, and up here our water is included as part of our council tax.

My base malt was free (I was given it when I bought my second hand equipment) and I just got the cheapest cascade pellets and decent yeast I could find.

I'll do the 2 "planned" beers from my sig using the free base malt but will chuck what's left after. Total cost of ingredients including postage is £23, so that will be about 28p a bottle assuming at least 40 bottles of each beer.

 

[VillageBrew]

Including yeast I think I've just spent £10.50 making 25 litres of Stout, mainly helped by buying bulk malt from the Homebrew Company. That's about 22p per pint, but I've not included electricity to keep my Cygnet at a rolling boil for 90mins! I try not to think about the electricity bill....

 

[VillageBrew]

Including yeast I think I've just spent �£10.50 making 25 litres of Stout, mainly helped by buying bulk malt from the Homebrew Company. That's about 22p per pint, but I've not included electricity to keep my Cygnet at a rolling boil for 90mins! I try not to think about the electricity bill....

My wife just pointed out that doesn't include the cost of the equipment. I've generously included the cost of the boiler and reckon I'll get 78 Brews out of it (:hmm:) so that bumps it up to 25p per pint :ugeek:

 

[MarkMayf]

I knocked a spreadsheet together with all the equipment costs and ingredient costs, to work out the cost per bottle.

My first batch was only a half batch with 21 bottles, and it worked out at £11.70 per bottle! Now I have made a second batch the cost has dropped to around £2.70.

 

[GHW]

I knocked a spreadsheet together with all the equipment costs and ingredient costs, to work out the cost per bottle.

My first batch was only a half batch with 21 bottles, and it worked out at £11.70 per bottle! Now I have made a second batch the cost has dropped to around £2.70.

There was a thread about this a while back where someone argued that the '25p a pint' type metric was unrealistic.

I'm sure it's possible over time but I reckon that my brewing costs roughly the same as buying (cheap) bottled beer in the supermarket once all costs are taken into account. Say around £1.50 a bottle, maybe more.

That's factoring in equipment, gas, ingredients, chemicals (water and sanitising).

Im not the most econominal brewer; I typically only brew 10 or 15L batches and don't always use a whole pack of hop or grain which I then may not use up in another brew as I want variety. So I could brew more volume for virtually no more cost.

Also I don't always reuse yeast, though I have started doing that more.

More equipment is the killer for me, there's always something else I want...a stir plate and flask is next on the list and that'll be £70 quid (I'm not going to make one!), which rockets the average per pint.

 

[MyQul]

I would say a low OG AG beer with low hopping and the minimum amount of different specialty grains. Something like a mild or an ordinary/standard English Bitter

Grains bought in bulk
Hops, either English or European. Non of these scarce, expensive American hops like citra.
Yeast reused

 

[GlentoranMark]

Without counting in equipment, I could do a pint for under 20p.

1kg Irish Lager, Ale or Stout Malt is £1 in my LHBS, cheapest high alpha hops are around £3. Yeast is around £3 but can be washed and re-used for about 15 brews. You could do a simple SMASH easily for under 20p.

My house Stout costs
3kg Irish Stout Malt £3
1kg flaked barley £1.80
500g black barley 90p

free hops from Geterbrewed (otherwise £1)
S04 yeast (2nd brew from this yeast £1.17)

Total £7.87 for 22L of 4% beer

18p a pint

 

[Cqr]

I'am still to do AG, so it's got to be wine wow

 

[LarryF]

Most of my brews work out at about 35p ish a pint. Eg John Bull IPA £9, BE £3.75, honey 20p, hops £1, YN 20p. Priming sugar 30p, Pitch from trub, £14.45 for 40 pints.

 

[Covrich]

I did a small brew today using up the last of my slovenian hops i will post it up later.. I used only 2KG of MO half a packet of gervin yeast and the hops were free so I reckon this will cost me around 15-20p depending on how many bottles I get out.

If I add the hops in it would be closer to 30p a bottle probably..

 

[mgreenough]

Without counting in equipment, I could do a pint for under 20p.

1kg Irish Lager, Ale or Stout Malt is £1 in my LHBS, cheapest high alpha hops are around £3. Yeast is around £3 but can be washed and re-used for about 15 brews. You could do a simple SMASH easily for under 20p.

My house Stout costs
3kg Irish Stout Malt £3
1kg flaked barley £1.80
500g black barley 90p

free hops from Geterbrewed (otherwise £1)
S04 yeast (2nd brew from this yeast £1.17)

Total £7.87 for 22L of 4% beer

18p a pint

Which lhbs do you use and do they have a website?

 

[GlentoranMark]

Which lhbs do you use and do they have a website?

http://houseofhomebrew.co.uk/

Geterbrewed is within driving distance and are cheaper for a lot of things but the shop above is only 2 miles up the road so handier I support them.

I suppose when you factor in petrol, postage, electric, wear and tear it come to more than 20p a pint but when you start factoring in these things then your starting to think brewing like a business and have to count VAT and duty.

 

[Slid]

I would say a low OG AG beer with low hopping and the minimum amount of different specialty grains. Something like a mild or an ordinary/standard English Bitter

Grains bought in bulk
Hops, either English or European. Non of these scarce, expensive American hops like citra.
Yeast reused

Yes those would work well in the cost stakes. Exactly the sort of beer that was widely served in buildings called Pubs, when I were a lad.

I would add to the list the low hopped beers like Northern Brown Ale (courtesy once again of our good friend Greg Hughes), which is remarkably good.

I made a stove top AG version of this at 24x500ml bottles and the ingredients cost was around £4. This is buying grains (2.75k in total for this brew) in bulk and re-using yeast so that the "Mother" yeast is put into 6x250ml Lemonade bottles as "daughter" yeast starters.

 

[MyQul]

Yes those would work well in the cost stakes. Exactly the sort of beer that was widely served in buildings called Pubs, when I were a lad.

I would add to the list the low hopped beers like Northern Brown Ale (courtesy once again of our good friend Greg Hughes), which is remarkably good.

I made a stove top AG version of this at 24x500ml bottles and the ingredients cost was around ��£4. This is buying grains (2.75k in total for this brew) in bulk and re-using yeast so that the "Mother" yeast is put into 6x250ml Lemonade bottles as "daughter" yeast starters.

I understand Cwrw666 likes the brown ale from GH's book because of the low cost and it's (one of) his house beers

 

[Slid]

I understand Cwrw666 likes the brown ale from GH's book because of the low cost and it's (one of) his house beers

Yes, I saw this thread as well. Not sure if it was before or after. I set mine off on 5 January 2016.

It is quite good on its own and blends well with more prominently flavored beers like Stouts.

 

[MyQul]

Yes, I saw this thread as well. Not sure if it was before or after. I set mine off on 5 January 2016.

It is quite good on its own and blends well with more prominently flavored beers like Stouts.

Will be having a crack at this recipe, all be it with different (slovenian, as that's what I have) hops in a couple of brews time. As I think it will go well with the Shepard Neame yeast I'm currently culturing up.