Home Brewing Costs

Home Brew Costs Change With Price Of Ingredients

Depending on what you might already own and the quality of the equipment you buy, starting your own home brewery can be cheap and efficient or an economic nightmare. For basic equipment for making home brew, costs can be expected to be around $150. However, this is for the equipment alone and does not include any of the ingredients. As a general rule of thumb, a five-gallon batch of home brew costs cost about $3 per six pack for light-body lager beer.

Estimates on home brew costs will vary widely depending on the cost of the ingredients, which lately have skyrocketed due to a shortage of available aroma hops in the home brew market. As recently as 2000, hops were selling on the open market at about $2 a pound. In 2007, the price of hops was about $26 per pound, if they could be found at all. This price increase has greatly influenced home brew costs and has threatened to put a halt to the home brew market.

As many commercial brewers have the price they pay for hops locked in by contract in may be a year or two before the increase in hops prices affects the price of beer, but unless there is a drastic increase in supply, the demand for hops threatens to make home brew costs out of range for many individual brewers.

Equipment Costs Remaining Stable

Although the ingredient cost will fluctuate with the market, the cost of equipment such as a five gallon pot, hydrometer to measure alcohol content and bottle sanitizer and topper have remained fairly constant. While the average home brew costs for equipment ranges around $150, people can spend over $300 to have all of the equipment they might ever use in making their own beer.

For the beginners on a budget, finding less expensive equipment can reduce the initial home brew costs but those anticipating a long-term love of their beer-making hobby spending the extra money may be worth the expense. Not including the hops, home brew costs for the rest of the ingredients, yeast, bottle caps and malt should be around $20 for a five-gallon batch, or about $12 per case of 12-0nze bottles.

Eliminating the cost of the bottles and caps can be more fun if the home brewer puts the finished product in a keg. The costs of the tap can be divided up among the number of times it is used to reduce the home brew costs for every batch.

Home Brewing Recipes

Easy Home Brew Recipes

For thousands of years, people have been brewing alcoholic beverages in their own homes. Beginning in ancient Sumer (often referred to as Sumeria), where the fermentation process was discovered, the practice of brewing beer and similar beverages has been passed down from person to person, country to country and culture to culture for over 11,000 years. During that time, many different types and recipes for home brew have developed. If you’re looking to get into the art of home brewing yourself, trying out simple home brew recipes is a good way to get your feet wet.

A Simple Recipe

Assuming that you have all the necessary equipment, such as a beer brewing kit, a large pot (ideally five gallon capacity and made of stainless steel or enamel), a long handled stirring spoon, and bottles for storing the beer once it’s done, you’ll just need to gather the ingredients for your beer. You can check your local listings for a wine-making supply store or even get them offline.

There are several different home brew recipes out there when it comes to beer. Each brewer may have their own secret ingredient or add some special combination of herbs or spices to give their beer a unique flavor that’s all their own. When you’re first starting out, begin by testing some very basic home brew recipes.

Your shopping list for most simple beginner’s home brew recipes will look something like this:

3.5 lbs. of malt extract

½ lb. of crystal malt grain

¼ lb. of pale malt grain

¼ lb. of oat grain

1 to 2 oz. of hops

1 package of brewer’s yeast

3/8 cup of corn sugar

To make your beer, steep the grains for 30 minutes. Once they have steeped for this long, strain them, and add them to the large brew pot along with a gallon of water and the malt extract. Allow this mixture to boil. As soon as it starts to bubble, add half of the hops and let it continue to boil for an hour. Remove the hops from the brew pot and add the rest of the hops. Let the mixture (also called wort) boil for another half an hour.

Once the mixture is done boiling, let it cool. After it has reached room temperature, strain the plant material from the wort and pour it into the large glass bottle in your beer brewing kit. Add the brewer’s yeast, and place the airlock on the bottle. After 7 to 14 days, your beer should be done fermenting and ready to bottle.

More Home Brew Recipes

The recipe outlined here is only one of many. If you’re looking for something a bit more advanced, try doing a search on Google. You’ll find several websites and blogs dedicated to the pursuit of the perfect home brew. Just take a few minutes to peruse the various recipes you find and pick one that appeals to you.

Home Brewing Supplies

The Right Home Brewing Supplies Simplifies The Process Of Making Beer At Home

There are millions out there who have discovered the joy of making beer at home. Actually this is one of the favorite hobbies today in USA and many parts of Europe as well. The fact that the process is quite simple with the complete methodology found described in detail online and offline has made it possible for all these people to start out with this activity.

The rewards of making beer at home are great both in terms of pleasure as well as finances. You could sell your beer and earn some decent side income while you would enjoy learning to make the drink to perfection.

What Are Home Brewing Supplies For Beer Needed?

Before you launch into your business, you would need to know and gather all the home brewing supplies needed. Fortunately, the majority of these supplies are easily available in the market; those who are not available could be procured by order. The following are the home brewing supplies you would need:

1. Water – this the commonest of the ingredients, yet the most important. However, this is not to be taken lightly as the taste and quality of the water could influence greatly the end result – sometimes completely destroying the batch.
2. Malt barley – this is the main ingredient that goes into making beer, while for wine it would be grapes. Barley malt power which is reinforced with vitamins works much faster than the regular is normally used here. This accelerates the process giving the anticipated results faster than any other method available today.
3. Yeast – in order to make beer you need to have it ferment; and in order to have it ferment you need to use yeast. The yeast uses the sugar fed to it and converts it into two chemicals, i.e. carbon dioxide and alcohol. The two most common yeast types used for this purpose are ale and lager.
4. The magic ingredient – all those who love beer are aware that this beverage is slightly bitter. The slightly bitter taste comes from another must-have among the home brewing supplies needed, i.e. the hops. This is a specific vine's flower that gives its trademark bitter taste.
5. A good know-how resource – once you have all the home brewing supplies you need, you would require to know how to go about making the beer. For this purpose you need to research for sometime until you find the best (read the easiest) recipe to start your experiment. As you would practice and learn, you would be able perfect the method and make some excellent beer right in your home with the least effort and cost.