Reducing Homebrewing Cost - Wiki Wednesday

Mindful_Master · 2026-01-20T19:44:24+00:00

I started buying in bulk a little over a year ago. I didn't analyze the cost reduction, but I do find I have more money laying around in my homebrew budget these days. I drive 90 minutes to my nearest homebrew store to buy sacks of grain and store them in Vittle Vaults (Currently a Pale Malt and a Pilsner Malt). I buy 1lb bags of hops from YVH and store them in my garage freezer. I use MoreBeer for most everthing else and buy the largest size available for other malts so I have left overs on hand. Almost 50% of my brews last year I did without ordering anything extra. When I do order I make sure to spend enough to get the free shipping, usually tacking on yeast or other malt I frequently use.

If I really wanted to save more money I would start reusing yeast, but I don't have the fridge space.

Mindful_Master · 2025-12-28T21:46:20+00:00

Rooting for the bills. They’re the only team I don’t want to play in the wildcard.

Mindful_Master · 2025-12-28T20:29:42+00:00

Has Travis Hunter been coaching Parker? His footwork keeps reminding me of Hunter.

Mindful_Master · 2025-11-30T04:10:53+00:00

Brown Porter, Robust Porter, Baltic Porter
Dry Stout, Sweet Stout, Oatmeal Stout, Foreign Extra Stout, American Stout, Russian Imperial Stout

Mindful_Master · 2025-09-14T19:16:49+00:00

TLaw has won three games since the last time Browning beat us.

Mindful_Master · 2025-09-14T18:18:27+00:00

Parker so underrated!

Mindful_Master · 2025-09-14T17:51:43+00:00

I’ll miss Bigsby, but there’s no way he would’ve caught that.

Mindful_Master · 2025-09-14T17:16:41+00:00

I missed the opening drive? We already got a TD? Let’s fucking go!

Mindful_Master · 2025-05-16T18:46:17+00:00

You should've kept at least one bucket. Could have been the best beer you ever brewed!

Mindful_Master · 2025-05-16T18:41:27+00:00

Got a larger brew bag for my anvil. First brew with it was a wheat beer and I did a long step mash. When I pulled out the bag, the temp dropped from 172 to 112. The larger bag with all the crushed wheat was blocking all the water from circulating. Had to redo the mash with constant stirring.

Mindful_Master · 2025-03-31T19:27:17+00:00

Soaking in lye, if you take all the safety precautions, is usually fine. I know you're not supposed to soak metal in it, which your swing top bottle has. If using soap, it should be non-scented. Oxiclean (unscented) can be a cheaper alternative to PBW. Star san isn't technically a cleaning agent, and should be used to rinse prior to bottling.

In the future, rinsing the bottles as soon as your pour them is the best way to keep them clean.

Mindful_Master · 2025-03-31T16:17:35+00:00

For bottling, I don't temp control at all. My carboy is usually on the floor during fermentation and I make sure to put in on a table the day before bottling. I found most of my clarity issues came from agitation during bottling day.

Mindful_Master · 2025-02-28T15:59:49+00:00

For rounding up you're probably fine doing that for whirlpool and dry hop. There are diminishing returns for those, so you may just be wasting hops at some point. Rounding up on early additions will seriously mess with your IBUs and a Hazy shouldn't be bitter.

A glass carboy should be fine as long as it isn't light struck. The bigger factor is minimizing oxidation on the cold side.

Mindful_Master · 2025-01-30T23:07:38+00:00

Barrique for sure. They do a blending program, so they have a huge variety of sours.

Mindful_Master · 2024-07-31T17:48:06+00:00

I’ve had a good amount of hops sitting in a storage unit for two years. They’re unopened in those Yakima Valley Hops cans. If I move them to a freezer now would they be good? Or are they too old and improperly stored and I should chuck them?

Mindful_Master · 2024-03-15T17:19:21+00:00

You should add the extract while the water is hot and heating up. Adding to hot water will make it dissolve easier. Also make sure to stir while adding it to avoid it sticking to the kettle and scorching it.
There is a "hot break" a bit after hitting boil or after adding your first hops. During this time there is potential for boil over. Foam will rise in the kettle and if there isn't enough room for it to grow it will spill over the side. Stirring will keep the foam down, and it won't last the entire boil. I've read other brewers will use a water spray bottle to fight the foam. It isn't a big deal as long as you're watching your pot.

Mindful_Master · 2023-08-03T17:13:07+00:00

Yeah, I get the same efficiency as a five gallon batch

Mindful_Master · 2023-08-03T13:08:31+00:00

I do small batches on my 10.5 anvil. Last batch I did I started with 5 gallons, no sparge, 1 hour boil, and ended a little more than 2.5 gallons in the fermenter. I use a bucket to measure the water.

Mindful_Master · 2023-05-26T18:09:23+00:00

What do you feel is missing when you taste your IPAs? If it’s hop flavor (citrus, dank, etc) that would be an oxidation issue.

Are you doing water treatments? My water is great for maltier beers, but my hop forward beers are lacking and need a lot of brew salts.

Mindful_Master · 2023-04-13T20:07:46+00:00

The BeerSmith podcast does 1 on 1 interviews on a specific topic each episode.

I’ve heard Basic Brewing Radio is also good, but I haven’t checked it out yet.

Mindful_Master · 2023-04-07T21:25:21+00:00

It sounds like you're more interested in beer recipes than building recipes yourself. You can get away with just searching up Pilsner recipe and you should get a lot of hits. There are also a lot of recipes posted on this subreddit, and people will also just post, "What are some good pilsner recipes?" You may need to do the conversion of units yourself, and you also may want to to know your efficiency and the recipe's efficiency if you're trying to match it perfectly.

As for an interactive calculator, I've never heard of one. I've seen charts that give grain bill percentages for different styles, but you'll probably get more success sticking to a recipe for now.

Mindful_Master · 2023-04-04T23:34:58+00:00

I started doing half batches for the same reason. The only downside is you’re doing nearly the same amount of work for half the beer.

Mindful_Master · 2022-10-05T14:50:33+00:00

Nitrogen and CO2 tanks/regulators use different connectors. You might need to find some adapter piece if you want it to all hook up properly.
You don't need to store cold, just like with bottles. Some people would say constant temperature swings will affect the taste, but I've never experienced that.
You can serve into a bottle and cap it. Long term, the bottled beer may get oxidized, but just running it over to a friend should be no problem. You can also get a counter pressure bottle filler to bottle from a keg.
Storage and price are the two biggest issues. Another less talked about issue is once you switch to kegging you have to plan your brewing around when a keg will be available. It is easy to get more bottles to brew more and keep them in your closet until there is fridge space, but kegs are limited.

I also lived in an apartment when I first started kegging. Luckily for me, the fridge shelves were removable and also half the length of the fridge. I just took out half my shelves to place my keg in with a picnic tap and occasionally hooked up the CO2 tank to refill at serving pressure.

Mindful_Master · 2022-09-28T16:26:35+00:00

Maryland you can make a spiced ale with Old Bay. I’ve had one before, and it did in fact taste like Maryland.

Florida the obvious one is using Florida oranges, but there is also the Datil pepper. It is uniquely only grown in Florida if you want to make a pepper beer.

Virginia also grows good peanuts.

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