Homebrew

[pmp]

Awesome. Now I don't feel like the only one who spends most of my money on cigars and homebrew!

[chefchris]

So I made some beer bread today. Tastes pretty good. Cup and a half of Maris Otter and half cup of Vienna Malt. Mashed it, then mixed it with yeast and flour. Sounds simple, but my back hurts.

Mine ended up a little dough-y in the center though I couldn't have cooked it any longer as I didn't want to throw off my bittering addition. Maybe next time I'll fly sparge and only use a half of the grains. They hold a lot of water and I had to use a lot flour. Maybe make a starter a couple days a head of time.

Mashing In:



Seperated into two loafes:



BING!




I got 76% efficiency on my first go!









My apologies to the non-brewers who won't understand my witty jokes spread throughout the post.

[FactoredReality]

Looks like some tasty bread. Were you able to measure the OG?

[chefchris]

Looks like some tasty bread. Were you able to measure the OG?

No, but I did check my gravity as I was sparging so I never went below 1.010.

[badwhale]

Chris,

Do you have a figure in your head as to how much each bottle costs to make (roughly), excluding the initial equipment startup costs?

Will

[chefchris]

Chris,

Do you have a figure in your head as to how much each bottle costs to make (roughly), excluding the initial equipment startup costs?

Will

Well, it takes about $150-$200 to start. You buy a kit and then you gotta buy a pot. You can find turkey fryers for under $30. Then you're average extract batch is gonna cost somewhere between $30-40, but it's easy to find them in the $20 price range depending on what recipe you're picking. Higher alcohol is going to cost more because it includes more fermentables.

When you go into all grain is where it gets cheaper per batch. I bought a cooler and some spare parts from home depot for under $50. That's pretty much all you need for All Grain.

So I did an English Mild a couple months ago. The total cost me about $16 for all the ingredients. Let's say I got 48 bottles out of it (about 2 cases), that brings it to .33 cents a bottle. I just did an Imperial Honey Porter that cost a little more since it's higher ABV and requires more grains. The whole batch cost me about $38 so that comes to .79 cents a bottle. That is not including equipment.

If you've got a burner or huge pot (perferably over 8 gallons) then that's less to spend. I got my 15 gallon pot for about $60. Or you can find a keg and convert it into a 'keggle'. You'll want to be able to do a full boil. So if it's a 5 gallon batch you're boil volume will be around 7 gallons. After an hour boil, it should have it down to 5 gallons, but you need the room for the full boil. And of course, it's going to be cheaper to go ahead and get the equipment you'll need now instead of upgrading as you go.






I know cost is important, but I freakin' love this hobby. You're learn to love good beer even more when you start appreciating how it's made. I find myself trying all kinds of new beer looking for what to brew next.

Try looking around Austin Home Brew Supply and you can price all the different kits. You'll probably want to start off with extract. If you want to see price per bottle, just divide the price by number of bottles. You usually yield around 2 cases.

If this doesn't make any sense or you have any more questions, ask away!

[FactoredReality]

Just brewed a batch of Scottish 60 shilling, have a English Bitter in the secondary. Anyone have anything good brewed or on deck?