3 noob questions

mikemcdeedy100

got a couple of quick noob questions thanks:D

what's the simplest way to make some starting off without buying too much equipment?

is it cheaper than buying cans?

is it dangerous to drink if you make it wrong?


thanks:D

tteknulp

mikemcdeedy100 wrote: »

got a couple of quick noob questions thanks:D

what's the simplest way to make some starting off without buying too much equipment?

is it cheaper than buying cans

thanks:D

http://www.homebrewwest.ie/30-l-budget-beer-starter-kit-with-32-pint-ingredient-kit-843-p.asp

All you need here ,includes beer kit too €30 bargain

Cheaper and tastes better when made correctly

Not dangerous ,once you follow a good guide ,theres one on beoir

BeerNut

It's not dangerous at all, really, or at least the drinking bit isn't, apart from the alcohol.

If you're using bleach and vinegar to sanitise it's dangerous not to add them to the water separately; if you don't let fermentation finish completely you run the risk of dangerous exploding glass; but other than that I don't see what's specifically dangerous about home brewing.

mikemcdeedy100

thanks

how much per pint roughly is homebrew to make ballpark

after you have all the kit

BeerNut

Say €15 for a 1.7kg kit + €8 for a kilo of spraymalt, throw on a fiver for delivery, allow for incidentals like caps, sanitiser, priming sugar: call it an even €30 for about 20L, which is about 35 pints, so your ballpark is around 86c a pint, but there's a fair bit of room to run around that park, in both directions.

Tube

mikemcdeedy100 wrote: »

thanks

how much per pint roughly is homebrew to make ballpark

after you have all the kit

All Grain is by far the cheapest and costs me around 17c per pint for a typical beer.

Just FYI, NHC members get a 5% discount on all purchases from HomeBrewWest.

blueshed

http://www.homebrewwest.ie/finlandia-dark-ale-10-kg-kit-less-than-40-pints-1342-p.asp + http://www.homebrewwest.ie/bh-light-lme-liquid-malt-extract-15-kg-2733-p.asp

2 cans of the above then dry hop a few days before you bottle, should have a nice cheap brew.

tommiet

looks interesting, going ordering this stuff... what did you dry hop with and how many litres did you make it to

Khannie

Tube wrote: »

All Grain is by far the cheapest and costs me around 17c per pint for a typical beer.

Wowzers. That's very cheap indeed. I know nothing about beer brewing (except the very basics). I presume there's quite a bit of effort involved in an all grain brew?

Tube

Khannie wrote: »

Wowzers. That's very cheap indeed. I know nothing about beer brewing (except the very basics). I presume there's quite a bit of effort involved in an all grain brew?

Compared to Extract there's a bit more alright, though once you understand it you can overlap bits of it and cut down the time required.

Now that I see you there we got freshly pressed Irish cider apple juice last year for €1 a litre. We're hoping to do it again this year but for a bit less, maybe 75c a litre.

sharingan

Also as you get better at brewing, and invest in the right equipment, you can brew beer from the base materials (malted grain, and hops). There are opportunities to go even cheaper still and the beer gets better too.

For instance, a lot of my beers can come in as low as 12 - 15 for a full batch (20-25L), so we are down to about 20-30c for a 500ml bottle. It took about 200e worth of equipment to go to all grain brewing, but it does make it seriously cheap and the beer is better and more fun to make.

If you really want to cut corners on the initial investment in AG brewing equipment, a 19L stockpot, a grain mill and a 2.5KW induction plate is all you need if you go the brew in the bag route.

If you want to brew some simple country wines, you can go crazy cheap too, as you can use plain table sugar for a lot of them. However it is difficult to make these as good as shop bought wine. The beer that you make in your own kitchen can be excellent, with a bit of practice it can be better than what you get down the pub. Its easy to get craft beer pub quality too, with more practice.

sharingan

Khannie wrote: »

Wowzers. That's very cheap indeed. I know nothing about beer brewing (except the very basics). I presume there's quite a bit of effort involved in an all grain brew?

There is a lot of wiggle room. Certainly the least effort AG solution is the brew in the bag method.

Using that, I can get my water up to strike temp (about 1 hour), get my grain mashed (1 hr -90 mins) and go through a full boil (60- 90 mins). half an hour to clean up, so all done except pitching, and I can do it in a weeknight.

The 3 vessel system has a lot of technical processes designed to remove unwanted material from your wort. And it does have a lot more work involved.

Khannie

Tube wrote: »

Now that I see you there we got freshly pressed Irish cider apple juice last year for €1 a litre. We're hoping to do it again this year but for a bit less, maybe 75c a litre.

Thanks for the heads up. You can count me in for a large purchase there. Probably upwards of 100 litres. Please don't let that purchase go through without me in it!

Devi

Tube wrote: »

All Grain is by far the cheapest and costs me around 17c per pint for a typical beer.

Just FYI, NHC members get a 5% discount on all purchases from HomeBrewWest.

Wow, hope you don’t mind me asking but how do you get the price that low? Seriously thinking about going all grain.

tommiet

I didn't spend 200 euro to go all grain, i was kit brewing for a good while and started gathering up the bits for all grain, my kettle is an old keg with two kettle elements, kettles i pick up at my local recycling centre, just removed the elements, the guys on beoir helped me out there, my mash tun is a cheap cool box i picked up on adverts.ie, got the fittings from a mate and made it myself, youtube helped me there, wort chiller is easy to make, but i also built one of theses, it works great, with the immersion wort chiller, so its not expensive to make beautiful fresh beer.. I have some cider on to..
Khannie gave me the recipe for that..

bastados

Bought A basic 25 lt kit and being the glutton I am a packet of turbo.

I brewed a few beers decades ago with all the right equipment..beer sphere and the works but that was a long time ago and am very rusty in the know-how dept.

I was hoping for a few basic pointers on budget recipes , bearing in mind I havent acquired any bottles atm either.I was hoping to make some kind of fruit(ish) drink tailoring budget to produce something which would be a learner and an end product that isn't utter gut rot. Thanks James.

Tube

Devi wrote: »

Wow, hope you don’t mind me asking but how do you get the price that low? Seriously thinking about going all grain.

The club bulk buys (anyone if free to join). AG is cheap anyway, but we have it down to a fine art!

sharingan

Tube wrote: »

The club bulk buys (anyone if free to join). AG is cheap anyway, but we have it down to a fine art!

For a basic 22L Pale Ale batch, I will use:

~ 5kg base malt (maris otter)
~ 500g specialty malts
~ 2-4 Oz of hops
1 sachet of dried beer yeast
~ 40-44 bottle caps

I can get my Maris Otter for £1 Kg
Specialty malts vary a lot, lets call them £3 a Kg
Hop prices vary widely, by hop, freshness and source, but vary mostly within the £1 - £1.50 an Ounce (28g)
Good dried yeast retails for about £2 - £3 a sachet. Any time I am in Wilkinsons (a UK budget retailer) I can pick up some of their beer yeast, which is about £1 each and is just relabelled Danstar Nottingham)
Bottle caps are £2 / 100

So going the cheap route, that 6.50 in malt, £3 hops, £1 caps and £1 yeast. £11.50 not including any power/water usage (2.5 KW element running for about 2.5 hours).

Or about 26p a bottle if I manage to get all 22L out of it. There is still room for improvement too - in the specialty malts and the hops. Kegging or using screw caps cuts out capping, and you can probably shave a lot out of the grain bill (my brewhouse efficiency is probably not that high). Our beer club sourced hops direct recently, that got me 500g of EKG for 6.50). If you wash your yeast, or pitch onto an existing yeast cake from your previous brew, you can get your yeast costs down to zero aswell.