more costly to make than buy carsburg special brew?

[termite]

hello all.

i have just borrowed from the library, dave lines brewing beers like those you buy.

looking at recipe for carsburg special brew (3 litre) batch i have searched on the internet for some of the ingrediantes listed.

ie 2900ggrm crushed larger malt=£12 750grm flaked maize=£4

hops£4 yeast 30grm=£6

i still need irish moss /750 of golden syrup/sugar


it would cost me £30 to buy 30 500ml cans (3 litre) at my local off licence, no messing about and guaranteed taste etc

even though the book is old1984, and been revised

i cannot see how in this instance brewing your own can be cost effective.


having got a youngs starter kit half price at wilkinsons last year(£11) including larger kit/hydrometer /fermenting bin/etc

and following the instructions ok i did not like the finished lager found it rather weak and tasteless.

thanks all

 

[Wolverine]

I think you may have read the recipie wrong
Maybe 30ltrs but who makes 3ltr of beer ?
Also 30 x 500ml cand is 15 ltrs not 3
3 ltrs of beer would be a waste of time

 

[Eradite]

it would cost me £30 to buy 30 500ml cans (3 litre) at my local off licence, no messing about and guaranteed taste etc

:wha:

 

[Falconi]

i cant talk for AG recipes and cost but,

my first kit (youngs bitter) went badly wrong my fault, however i bought a Geordies Lager kit and although its not quite ready yet it tastes fantastic and at 28p a pint i dont think you can complain.

I have also done a wine kit from tesco's for £11 and made 30 bottles and even though im not a wine drinker i quite like the taste.

All in all i think if it tastes good you get a real satisfaction of making it yourself. :

 

[Wendy1971]

homebrew is always cheaper just depends where you shop for ingredients

 

[keith1664]

I have that book, the recipe for 15 litres is
2.9 kg lager malt = £3.625
750g flaked maize = 94p
irish moss (a quarter of a protofloc will do it) so 2.5p
90g of hallertau = £2.30
Yeast £1.30 up, depending on strain
750g golden syrup 82.5p

Total = £9.01 and a half for 30 cans of tramp juice = 30.5pence each
Of course if you buy your grains in bulk, reuse the yeast and read the recipe properly it gets even cheaper.

Alternatively you could make some cheap and tasty beer tuned to your own taste.

 

[Swazi]

The real beauty of home brewing is not that you can clone the cheap mass produced stuff for even cheaper (pointless really, just buy the cheap stuff) but that you can make the hard-to-find/lost styles/really expensive, imported stuff. not only can you make these wonderful beers but you can do it cheaply too.
:

 

[termite]

sorry all i did mean 15 litre not 3 litre.

keith 1664 i did a brief google search for the ingredients your f igures are rather differant from what i found.

could you please give a link to the revelant homebrew surplier please,

i dont know how to reuse the yeast as according to recipe i would need 30gm and i believe yeast comes in 5gm packets??

if indeed i have made a grave error here and £9 or thereabouts enables me to make 15 litres of sbrew ill start a batch as soon as my edme larger is out of my fbin.

i do agree about stuff that is no longer made if i am correct as opposite page gives a recipe for worthington white shield.

thank you all

 

[unclepumble]

sorry all i did mean 15 litre not 3 litre.

keith 1664 i did a brief google search for the ingredients your f igures are rather differant from what i found.

could you please give a link to the revelant homebrew surplier please,

i dont know how to reuse the yeast as according to recipe i would need 30gm and i believe yeast comes in 5gm packets??

if indeed i have made a grave error here and £9 or thereabouts enables me to make 15 litres of sbrew ill start a batch as soon as my edme larger is out of my fbin.

i do agree about stuff that is no longer made if i am correct as opposite page gives a recipe for worthington white shield.

thank you all

If you like special brew I'd get learning how to make it fast, as it will be either bloody expensive or a damn sight weaker soon as the beer duty escalator kicks in, Duty alone at its current strength will be around £1.40 per 500ml, so expect it to be well over £2 a can soon, or discontinued.

Malt miller top of the page is very reasonable if you buy enough delivery is free too.

UP

 

[TheMumbler]

Malt miller top of the page is very reasonable if you buy enough delivery is free too.

Is it?? There is nothing about that on the site...

 

[keith1664]

I did indeed use the Malt Millers web site to price up your brew, though I must admit to not taking postage into account.
For balance I've just priced it uo for my local home brew shop and it comes out at £12.36 or 41.2p a can.
Your main errors are with the yeast (one packet will be plenty) and grain prices. My LHBS does lager malt at £1.45/kg, Malt Miller is £1.25 or £1/kg in bulk, I'm really not sure where you got £12 from!

 

[Moley]

Malt miller top of the page is very reasonable if you buy enough delivery is free too.

I think you may be mistaken. As Mumbler says, there really is nothing about that on the website.

 

[Dunfie]

To be honest, I stopped kidding myself on that making beer was "saving me money" a long time ago. If I do a tally of all the brewing equipment that is lying around in my garage I know that I could probably buy a few years worth of cheap, tasteless, homogenised, fizzy crap from the supermarket.

Mind you its still fun to be able to tell someone that the homebrewed beer they are drinking works out at a few pence a pint (if you ignore capex) :whistle:

 

[hairybiker]

It is the same with most if not all hobbies. We don't make cheap beer, we make beer cheaply because we can tailor the beer to what we like, strength, hops, aroma etc. E.g. Caravanning if you only use it for 2 weeks a year, you have the cost of a new van (£15-£20K :shock: ) plus a large car to tow it (same again +) and the ever rising cost of sites, vs £1k/pp to go abroad = much cheaper to do the package deal. But when you start using it nearly every weekend then the costs disappear.

If you want cheap booze go to Tesco, if you want good beer make your own :drink:

I don't like strong lager/beer per say, but I do enjoy a pint of Old Tom occasionally or Skull Splitter (when I see it) and I grew up brewing and drinking Traquair Ale (7.2% abv) used to get it by the case :drunk: (FREE :thumb: ) But realise that others do, I still prefer a 1045/50 pint over a 1035 one more due to better "body" & mouth feel.

Dave Lines recipes are the ones I started on in the 70/80's but moved over to Graham Wheelers later as they were more up to date.
On line prices can vary VASTLY, as already stated the Malt Miller is a good cheap source of supplier along with others (see the suppliers forum).
Moving directly to AG can be very costly, even doing it on the cheap (making your own equipment) it is still much dearer than buying a kit and just adding water/sugar to it, for the first say 10 brews. Until you have the kit and then then some decent beer starts flowing it is much easier to stay with kits and get the equipment over time adding to it as you get bits. Make a boiler using kettle elements and you can boil Malt Extract/DME and make a better beer than just a straight kit (you can do this with smaller volume and dilute later to start with).

But it will never just be about cost for brewing your own once you get the bug, you start wanting to try different add-on's/additives to you beer. Mixing different malts & yeasts to create different flavours etc.

Just my 2p's worth :whistle:

 

[termite]

thanks all just checked my local homebrew (biggerjugs.co.uk) i normally use this site because its local and i can order via email and collect in person so saving postage.

but 3kg of larger malt is nearly £8 will have a look at the miller site suggested.

at the moment i only have a large 2 gallon pot with lid for any boiling of ingredients that may be required.

i forgot to look on the surpliers threads on forum.

thank you

 

[Mark1964]

Home brew shops are always more expensive

 

[termite]

hi all i have just ordered from the (malt miller) after a chat with owner rob re ingredients.

enough to make 4x 15litres larger malt/maize /hopsetc

this came to £36 a sisable chunk of this is postageat £7.80

but was advised to look at (the brew in the bag methode) way of making this brew, seems i need to do a bit of forum browsing.

ps the above price only one larger yeast is included due to stock levels.

so this is rather differant to my original costing of approx £30


thanks to forum members information

thanks again

 

[Che Banana]

The best advice I could offer is to have someone experience around when you make your first one. And have a few pints set aside for his effort.