This homebrew lark is getting rather expensive...

[boingy]

This is the scenario. Tomorrow I'm harvesting my Cascade hops and immediately brewing with them. I want to tweak a recipe from last year but I have switched software from ProMash to Beersmith. Beersmith cannot open ProMash files directly but I discovered a while back that the free Brewmate software can open ProMash files and and save them in BeerXML format which Beersmith can open.

So, off I went loading, saving and loading again. I've never paid any attention to the "estimated cost" parts of brewing software and I certainly have never configured them to match my costs. Up pops my recipe in Beersmith. An initial scan was looking good until I got to the cost estimate: £421.47.

Now, admittedly that is for a 40 litre batch but ten quid a litre is a price I just can't afford. So I'm going to give away my stuff and go and buy some of that cheap lager from Tesco. It's the only solution I can think of...

[Manx Guy]

Blimey!

Seems one or more of the settings must be incorrect... Possibly your own grown hops?


I've probably not spent that on all my kits, aG gear and grain hops etc. since I started in 2009!

Guy

[Dave S]

On a slightly less jocular level, the cost of brewing - especially equipment is definitely much higher than when I started back in the seventies. Back then it was pretty much a boiler, a couple of plastic buckets, hydro and test jar and a few bits and pieces, and that was yer lot. Now you can spend shed loads if you're not careful. Having said that, the potential for much higher quality beers has increased by several factors because of it. So I'm not moaning really.

[Rookie]

I've noticed that the price of ingredients can vary quite widely from one HBS to another. The closest one to my house, whch I like pretty much overall, charges over $2 an ounce for hops. There is another one 20 miles farther away that charges $2.50-3.00 for two ounce packs. A large hop order would more than pay for the gas to get there.
It never hurts to shop around.