Thinking of going AG.. cost?

[jonewer]

Hi all, I just brewed my first all-extract (no kit) and am quickly realising that extract is actually more expensive than kits, once you add in all the yeast, hops, speciality grains, syrups, otter's spleens, badger's noses etc....

I heard somewhere that you can put together an AG for £6. Sounds far to good to be true!

So how much does an AG brew actually cost? Dont they use about a £billion of electicity to boil for 90mins, mash etc..?

If I'm lucky, SWMBO might might give me permission to get an AG setup for my bday.........

[Parva]

Boiling for 90 minutes costs around £1.25 or so for a 5 gallon batch. My beers usually work out at around 25p per pint and that includes electricity and water costs (damned water meter). Of course much depends on how cheaply you can source your grain and whatnot, if you're only buying in say 5Kg at a time from a LHBS then it will cost considerably more but it'll still work out cheaper than extract brewing and the resulting beers put my local pubs beers to shame.

[Invalid Stout]

I moved to AG before I actually intended to just because extract was so expensive.

A brew for £6 might be pushing it, that probably assumes you're getting hops mail order and your malt at near cost price from a brewery, but even getting the malt and hops from a LHBS it'll be cheaper than buying extract from the same LHBS.

Someone posted about electricity costs a few weeks ago. I don't remember the maths but I think it worked out at less than a quid's worth of electricity for a brew. You're basically just running a kettle for a couple of hours. What bumps up your electricity bills are things like heating and lighting that you have on for hours every day.

edit, I see someone was faster. ah well.

[jonewer]

I have seen prices in the region of £28 per 25kg. Is this decent?

Also what about crushing? I have heard that crushed malt loses flavour rapidly. Is it neccesary to get a mill or is this nothing to worry about?

[Dennis King]

I have seen prices in the region of £28 per 25kg. Is this decent?

Also what about crushing? I have heard that crushed malt loses flavour rapidly. Is it neccesary to get a mill or is this nothing to worry about?

Thats a good price if you can get it.
I`ve never had a sack of crushed malt go off.
once you`ve bought your kit and tasted your 1st AG you won`t worry about price.

[vacant]

My brews work out at about £11.30 for around 23L. I include metered water and electricity costs. That's also including £1.25 for a 1/6 of £7.50 - the post and packing for 6 brews - 25Kg MO plus other grains, yeast, hops.

[Parva]

I have seen prices in the region of £28 per 25kg. Is this decent?

Also what about crushing? I have heard that crushed malt loses flavour rapidly. Is it neccesary to get a mill or is this nothing to worry about?

£28 is ok for a 25Kg sack. I've managed to get mine considerably cheaper but that's certainly not expensive and is sufficient to brew about 200 pints @ 5% ABV. That's a very rough figure based on my comparatively low efficiences, you could easily get much more if your efficiency is higher or you brew lower ABV beers. If you were to brew 4% beers then you'd probably get another 60 pints or so out of it. These figures are very rough estimates as there are so many variations based on dead-space, batch or fly sparge etc etc so there are many ways that you might actually get more, my figures are based on my pretty inefficient ways. Unfortunately, you won't know what yours is until you try but I'd say my figures are about as bad as you can get.

Regarding crushed grain, I'm using crushed malt that is now nearly a year old with no problems and no detriment to what I expect to get from the mash. It's stored in my kitchen at near 19c.

The biggest expense is getting the equipment to do it (though you can make it yourself cheaply if you have the tools), once you have that in place it's dirt cheap. The downside is that unlike kits and extract brewing you actually have to play the waiting game for the mash and the boil. However, what you manage to produce will blow you away!

Brewing brings out the Gorden Ramsey in us. I like cooking and making food but know sweet sod all about how it 'should' be done so I tend to settle on a microwave meal. With brewing however, I have an idea of what hop changes a particular profile and I'm slowly becoming the Gorden Ramsey of brewing. I might not be able to cook up a decent cheffy tomato soup but I can certainly cook up a damned good beer.

[WishboneBrewery]

I'm slowly becoming the Gorden Ramsey of brewing. I might not be able to cook up a decent cheffy tomato soup but I can certainly cook up a damned good beer.

Fingers crossed I'll get there, its a awaiting game at the moment and worries about carbonation (from some early taster bottles) another 10 days-ish for my 'Deuchars IPA', then another Month for my 'Beard Lovers Bitter – W.G.V IPA', then yesterdays brew in the FV... If anything this hobby is going to teach me patience before I get any good at it!!!

[jonewer]

Brewing brings out the Gorden Ramsey in us.

It makes you swear a lot?

[jonewer]

What brought this on was realising that a decent boiler for my extract brews, plus a wort chiller would cost at least £120. Then a 25kg sack of DME another £100 (at least).

For that price I could almost get an AG setup from H&G plus a 25kg sack of crushed Marris Otter.... which made me think...!

[OldSpeckledBadger]

What brought this on was realising that a decent boiler for my extract brews, plus a wort chiller would cost at least £120.

You can build something perfectly adequate for a lot less than that.

Then a 25kg sack of DME another £100 (at least).

H&G do 15KG sacks for £52 which would be a better option IMHO as you'd get through it somewhat quicker. I've not seen any prices for 25KG sacks but they should be under £90 if you pro-rata against the 15KG sacks.

plus a 25kg sack of crushed Marris Otter.... which made me think...!

That 25KG MO is going to have about the same amount of fermentables as 16KG DME. You'll probably save £3 or £4 per 5-gallon brew (obviously more on higher gravity beers) at the expense of a couple of hours added to the brewing process. That extra time is enough to make it challenging to fit a brew into evening or a half day. This is what's making me cautious about going AG; I may not always have the spare time to brew regularly if I have to devote most of a day to it. Currently I'm extract brewing using spraymalt and a 5-gallon batch is costing about £16 or 40p per pint, which is a saving of about £2 per pint on pub prices. I could probably halve the cost by going AG but that's only an extra 20p per pint saved . I may well split the difference and go down the bulk DME route.

[wetdog]

I've worked my costs out to within a quid or so, the leccy being the wild card as you have to heat sparge water and boil the mash. Also I buy a 25kg sack of MO from the malster for £16 and hops when I see them being sold cheap as they seem to be one of the major costs;
per brew;

Grain £3
hops £2
yeast £1
electricity £1
saundries;
whrilflock tablet--------]
sugar(for priming)-----] > £1
campdon tablet---------]
cleaning solution etc---]
total £8
price per pint 20p

[jonewer]

You can build something perfectly adequate for a lot less than that.


H&G do 15KG sacks for £52 which would be a better option IMHO as you'd get through it somewhat quicker. I've not seen any prices for 25KG sacks but they should be under £90 if you pro-rata against the 15KG sacks.

Trust me, you dont want me "building" anything!

Do they do DME as well? I have only seen H&G do LME.

Muntons says they dont deal directly with the public. Spoilsports.

[confused]

I'm going to suggest that, making your own equipment you can brew a 40 pint batch for around the cost of 40 pints of decent real ale in an average pub, including putting the equipment together. Every batch after that you will be saving yourself around £90

A word of warning though, if you brew just to save money I think you'll be on sticky ground with AG. You need to commit a decent amount of time to it and IMHO you need to enjoy doing it to stay with it.

I price my AG brews to about 30p per pint, based on buyong MO in 25kg sacks. A good two can beer kit will cost you around 45p per pint and still produce a beer comparable, or better than most pubs will sell you.

If you want to produce decent, low cost beer than (and I know commited AGers will shudder when I say this) I really think kits are the way to go. If you have an interest in the brewing process, want to understand the ins and outs of the art, and want to fashion your own beers then AG is where to be.

[JohnJeye]

Cheap to make beer when you get going but start up costs are a fair bit really. Get the right gear though and you'll soon make the cost back and when your supping the beer you'll know cost is irrelvant now that you own beer that is that good !