Here
are my comments in response to an article titled: "All-grain brewing vs
extract brewing: Is it really cheaper?" -- found at http://www.fermentarium.com/content/view/178/58/
-- which comments are posted here because the above blog does not
provide enough room for my reply, ... which I did not discover until
only after I spent a lot of my time drafting it.
This was the immediately prior post from DJBrew:
I would be
interested in hearing your criticism, if you have time. We only censor
spam here.
... and now my reply to him:
Thanks. There are several things in your post that I strongly disagree
with, but also a lot that I do agree with too, so I probably expressed
myself more harshly than I should have; sorry about that. I had
just returned from a big party of beer and Texas Hold'em; my wife was
my designated driver. Anyway, here are my comments after more
'sober' reflection, and this is going to be long so I hope there is no
word limit.
First, I think that comparisons based on Northern Brewer is probably
very much out of line with common all grain brewing costs; except for
occasional posts that I read about on the Internet, EVERY all grain
brewer I know purchases in bulk. I haven't had to go to my LHBS since
before Christmas so I don't know how much prices have changed; I'll
probably make a trip in April and might be shocked, but for purposes of
this post I will use the prices I paid in November.
I purchased 200 pounds of Cargill 2-row pale malt; the price was
$37.00/50#, with an extra $3.00 if pre-crushed (if you don't have a
malt mill); I also purchased some hops by the pound, and I grow hops,
too, which reduce costs, but that won't matter for comparisons of
extract versus all grain. The cost for most specialty grains
(crystals and roasts) was two bucks a pound. Packaged 'flaked' grains
like barley or rye were $2.00/lb. The price of hops and yeast is the
same for both extract and all grain brewing, but I'll mention the price
for purposes of comparing my costs to kits; hops were $2.50/ounce and I
mostly use dry yeast (Safale US-05 or Nottingham) at $2.00/11g sachet
-- while White labs is about $6.00/vial. In any case, I always
build a starter, even from a single packet of dry yeast, which is then
divided for my entire brew session, which is usually two batches or
sometimes three batches in one day, often as partigyles. But
again, starters can be used for extract brewing, too, so I'll just
figure an average cost of $1.00 for yeast per batch (although it does
take some work, but then this is my hobby).
I'll compare my all grain costs with the cost of the kit for Oatmeal
Stout, which is one of my favorites, and I'll use the crushed grain
costs in case newbies have no mill.
Oatmeal Stout -- KIT = $24.50 ... PLUS shipping (BrewSaver Ground @
$7.99 is the cheapest way to my Zip) for a total cost of $32.49 for a
5-gallon batch.
Inventory and what MY cost is:
Kit has 6.5 lbs. Crisp Maris Otter (6.5# Cargill x $.80/# = $5.20 ...
OR ... MarisOtter @ $66.00/50# = 6.5# M.O. x $1.32 = $8.58).
1 lb. Flaked Oats (I use regular oatmeal at a buck/pound = $1.00).
0.5 lb. EACH of Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt, and Dark Crystyal (1.5#
x $2.00/lb for specialty malts = $3.00).
1 oz. of Glacier hops (my cost is $2.50 from my LHBS).
Wyeast #1084 (I usually use a dry yeast instead, but whether dry or
liquid I would usually split it, too, but I'll go with the full-price
for my liquid vial just to compare what we actually get -- my cost
would then be $6.00).
Using Maris Otter and a full vial of liquid yeast, my total cost is
$21.08 compared to $32.49 for a kit shipped to me from Northern Brewer
-- a difference of $11.41. A similar recipe using my usual
ingredients of Cargill 2-row and half a pack of Safale US-05, PLUS an
extra two ounces of hops that Northern Brewer doesn't provide, costs me
just $17.70 -- a difference of $14.79 from N.B., or little more than
HALF the cost
of a kit -- and my Oatmeal Stout is excellent. So my first
problem with your post is that I don't think you use realistic figures
for most all grain brewers. At the relatively higher cost of
kits, I just can't imagine very many serious all grainers buying them
-- even if the kits are still 'all grain'. I also use computer
software and design my own recipes and experiment a lot; I think that
makes for a much more interesting hobby, but that's just my opinion. I
realize that you can still add other stuff to a kit to experiment, but
that doesn't make a lot of sense to me; why buy a 'kit' in the first
place is you're going to change it?
Next, I take serious issue with your description of necessary equipment
and costs. Starting with the kettle, you suggest a 10 gallon
kettle is needed at a cost of "between $100-$200 USD".
YIKES!!! I have two different 30-quart 'turkey fryer' pots -- one
aluminum and one stainless -- and that size seems pretty standard; I
know a LOT of all grainers who use them, and I would even venture to
say that, outside of converted kegs, turkey fryers are probably the
most popular kettles. Thirty-quarts is 7.5 gallons, and with the
typical 6 gallon or less pre-boil volume, they are more than
adequate. I have never had a boil-over and flame out that was due
to anything other than my own neglect for not watching the pot.
If you watch it until hot break formation ends, and properly adjust the
boil rate, it will not boil over even with a very vigorous boil rate of
the usually recommended 10% boil-off rate per hour. Turkey fryer
pots come in a package which includes the propane burner and regulator,
too, but usully not the tank. If you're lucky, the entire set
without tank can be obtained for from $30 to $40.00; just before
Christmas, Bass-Pro shop was selling sets for $29.00, IIRC, and I have
also seen them in department stores, etc., on sale OFTEN for less than
fifty bucks. The tank will probably cost another $20.
Therefore, with a bit of careful shopping, I would expect you to be
able to purchase an adequate 30-quart pot, propane burner, and tank,
for less than $75.00 and perhaps even for less than $50.00.
Next you talk about a mash tun, and probably scare away a few more
folks by even mentioning an "all-grain continuous sparging system made
from two rubber maid coolers for $249.99 USD." YIKES!!! ...
again. I don't know ANYONE who uses such a thing, and even your
estimated costs for batch sparging are very high to me. And I
think that such high over-estimates of the cost for equipment can only
be a serious disservice to our craft because I fear it will only chase
away people who are considering all grain brewing.
Now, I use a 48-quart Coleman ice-chest that I actually salvaged from
the trash because my wife said it was getting too old looking and the
top wasn't closing right; I filled it with boiling water to soften the
sides a bit, dumped it, and cooled it off with the lid closed and
it now works like a charm, but I digress. Walmart sells a
Rubbermaid 48 Qt. Victory Ice Chest for just $14.98, which should work
just as well as mine (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5623411).
Is that large enough? Well, I've mashed 26 pounds of grain at one
time, which will make a full 5-gallon batch of as strong a barleywine
as you could want, or a TRIPLE partigyle (been there and done that,
too) of a nice range of beers. A 70-quart tun will be nice if I ever
get around to a larger brewing setup such as keg-conversions on tiers
or RIMS or HERMS, but MOST all grainers I know are using either 10
gallon (40 quart) round beverage coolers or ice chests that are much
closer to my size.
Next we come to your estimated costs for a "Cooler Conversion Kit
-- $29.99" and "Bazooka Screen -- $20.50".
First, what is a 'cooler conversion kit' and why is it necessary?
Let me say that I purchased a ten-foot long washing-machine hose
reinforced with stainless steel mesh tubing from Lowe's for just about
ten bucks, IIRC, although that was several years ago and no doubt costs
more now, but probably not as much as your bazooka. The couple of feet
of plastic hose that is also needed to complete the tun is less than a
buck.
I know most brewers who use much shorter mesh hoses which are also
cheaper, but I wanted a monster; I cut both ends off with a hacksaw,
stripped back some mesh from one end to expose about an inch of rubber
hose, clamped that end in a bench-vise, and slowly stroked the mesh
from the vise to the other end, over and over again, until it slipped
off. Easy. You can NOT "pull" the mesh off because it will
constrict (tighten against the rubber); instead, you need to "push" it
off, thus the repeated 'stroking' motions, to slowly move the slack
down the hose. I really don't think the whole process took more
than 15 minutes. I then stuck a piece of wood dowel in one end, and
didn't even bother to add a clamp; I've used it for maybe a hundred
batches or so, and it has never come out. I still use the Coleman
ice chest for cooling beer for parties, too; when I want to use it for
a tun, I just open the drain cap, slip some standard plastic tube
through the drain, which fits snuggly, cram the open end of my mesh
tube onto the plastic hose and coil the mesh in the bottom of the ice
chest. I then take a few inches of teflon tape and wrap the
plastic tube where it enters the ice chest drain -- I don't recall ever
seeing so much as a drip. The other end of the plastic hose is
simply elevated and stuck through the ice chest handle which acts as a
clamp to hold it in place until it needs to be lowered to drain.
I use NO valve/spigot or hose clamps, and have never had a mishap; just
four parts -- ice chest, mesh hose, plastic hose, and teflon
tape. Very simple, cheap, and it works great; I've been using it
for years. When I dump my spent grain onto my compost pile, I
just 'yank' the plastic tube out first so that the mesh tube is free to
drop out of the ice chest with the spent grain; this keeps it from
stretching, bending, or kinking, like it probably would if firmly
fastened with a clamp, and then I just easily fish it out of the
grain. I have mashed with oatmeal, rye, boiled rice, and even
ordinary bread flour, and have never used any rice hulls, but I have
NEVER had a stuck sparge (knock on wood), and my run-off is about as
fast as the drain opening will allow. Vorlauf is simple; I drain
the entire tun into a plastic bucket, set a plastic plate on top of the
grain bed to break the fall of the sweet wort when it is poured back
into the tun so it will not disrupt the grain bed, and then I just
drain. I detect no effects from 'hot-side aeration', and I get
very clear runnings. I then batch sparge and repeat the vorlauf
and runnings until finished. I average about 80% efficiency,
which is good enough for me.
I agree with you on the wort chiller; it is vital, and with the price
of copper going up, they are much more expensive. I've read
several posts where people have been able to buy ready-made
counter-flow chillers cheaper than they could buy the parts, due mainly
to copper coil prices. Anyway, it still can be done at an
affordable price; years ago I bought just 20' of 3/8" copper coil for
about six or seven bucks, plus the 'spring'-like bending tool (probably
a couple of bucks), and I made my own immersion chiller in probably
just a couple of minutes. Longer tubing would definitely be
better, but 20' is all I have but I can still drop a 5-gallon batch
from boiling to pitching temp in about a half hour; this is fast enough
to prevent the formation of any noticeable dimethyl sulfide
(DMS). The way it works is that I elevate my bottling bucket
which is filled with crushed ice and water, and let it gravity drain
through my coil and back out into the sink. The disadvantage is
that I have to keep filling the bucket with cold water, which gets a
little tedious, but its no real big deal. The complete setup is
bottling bucket on top of a plastic milk crate, short length of plastic
hose from the bucket valve to one end of my chiller which is in the
kettle, and a longer piece of plastic hose from the other end of the
chiller down into the sink; no clamps are used -- the water is not
under pressure and the hose doesn't even try to come off. So,
what would that setup cost today? I haven't checked the local
home improvement stores, but http://tinyurl.com/2nckas has a
25' length (5' LONGER than mine) for $24.99, and you should already
have a bottling bucket; the extra plastic hose is less than a buck.
Then you say "The last item in the 'highly recommended' list is a
propane burner. These cost around $50 USD to $60 USD."
Again, the turkey fryer kits already come with one, although they are
typically not very high capacity, so you can have trouble using one for
a ten gallon batch or on very cold windy days -- but they will still do
a good job in most instances. On cold days in the winter, I
pre-heat my wort on the kitchen stove to make use of the residual heat
inside the house, and then carry the wort to the propane burner outside
after it comes to a boil. My turkey fryer burner can manage to
sustain the boil even on cold days in winter, although a wind break is
definitely very helpful if it is windy (but that's easy and cheap
enough to do).
You didn't mention a malt mill, which is not actually 'necessary'
because most suppliers will crush the grain for a little extra cost,
but they are handy to have; however, that is an optional investment
that can certainly wait until later.
You mention that all grain requires less hops than extracts; I have
never heard of that before, and it defies my understanding. Can
you explain that? I presume you are basing this on lower hop
utilization for higher gravity concentrated-boils versus regular
full-volume boils, which is likely to be true to some degree; however,
concentrated versus full-volume boils have nothing to do with 'extract'
versus 'all grain', unless you are speaking of just being 'able' to do
concentrated boils for extracts, versus 'needing' to do full-volume for
all grain.
You finally do acknowledge, late in your article, that all grain can be
even cheaper when buying in bulk, but I think by then that most readers
are probably persuaded that all grain is not much more economical than
extract, especially considering the capital investment and extra
time. Time-wise, I think that all grain adds, at the most, two
extra hours, including all the extra work, from weighing the grain to
cleaning the tun; I typically mash for just 45 minutes, and all the
vorlaufs and batch sparges take perhaps 20 minutes for a double batch
(two five-gallon partigyles).
I do, however, wholly agree with your final comments: that "The real
reason you want to switch to all-grain is for the control over your
brews and ultimately to make better beer", and that "If you want to
make better beer, all-grain is the way to go."
By the way, before moving to all grain, I did extract brewing for
several years using BULK extract shipped to me in 60 pound 5-gallon
buckets. I never got the attenuation I wanted/expected, and it
was hard to work with to be creative, requiring mini-mashes which all
seemed to add up to even more work than all grain. Having brewed
for over ten years, I can't recommend all grain enough. Much of
what you need you would want to get eventually even for extract brewing
-- such as a full-sized kettle (e.g., a turkey fryer which you can use
for frying and boiling crawdads, too -- I do it all the time), a
bottling bucket, at least a minimal immersion chiller, and a full-size
ice chest that you can use for beer parties, too. Really, the
only extra thing that you'll buy that has no other purpose is the hose
for the mesh-tubing, and a little bit of plastic hose.
Sorry this was so long, and I hope it helps some homebrewers. By
the way, if it isn't inappropriate to mention, I am the founder of
'Grow-Hops' which now has over 1,750 members, so if anyone wants to
learn about growing their own hops, please check it out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grow-Hops
Cheers.
Bill Velek
3/30/08
I just have a few final comments:
1. You are correct that it would be more accurate to compare BULK
extract brewing with BULK all-grain brewing, but the problem is that
buying bulk extract is not that easy. Some LHBS have large drums,
but I don't think they probably sell at 'bulk' prices; on-line sources
were very difficult to find some years ago, and I really can't recall
where I bought my 60 pound buckets from, but I just happened upon
it. I don't have the time to try now, but I think we can all at
least agree that it is 'less available' than grain in LARGE bulk.
Sure, there are places that will sell LME in either gallon or two
gallon packages, but the last I looked I don't feel those prices are
what I'd consider 'bulk'. DME is, I think, probably completely
out of the question due to price, even if you find a 50 pound
sack. As for those 60 pound buckets I bought, I would dump a shot
of vodka on top after each use to try to help sanitize it, but
invariably I would always begin to encounter mold on the surface as I
would get near the bottom of the bucket. I would scrape it off,
and that _might_ be okay, but it sure isn't very appetizing, and I'd
usually end up tossing the very last of each bucket, which just raises
the price more. Also, IIRC, LHBS purge their drums with some sort
of gas, either nitrogen or CO2 (can't remember), which I wasn't doing,
so I don't know if that was affecting my beer. But the bottom
line is that you are correct that extract brewing, if you can find it
in bulk, would probably reduce all-grain savings substantially.
2. You mentioned that you're not sure where you can get a propane
tank for $20 USD; if you are willing to shop around or wait for a sale,
I'm sure you can get one at that price. But if you can't do that,
you can pay a few dollars more such as $22.84 for one that I can buy at
my local Sam's club http://tinyurl.com/36zfd8
or $24.98 at my local Lowe's http://tinyurl.com/3ydslt
3. As for MacGuyver'ing it with a bung, I just used a size of
tube that was tight-fitting within the ice-chest drain, and I wound a
short piece of teflon tape around the tube and the drain itself; works
perfect, so I can't see any newbie being frustrated.
4. Regarding thermal efficiency of my tun, it usually drops about
4 degrees F during the 45 minutes I mash; some of that is probably due
to heat still being absorbed by the thermal mass of the tun by the time
dough-in is finished and I put the lid on. I don't worry about
it; I could aim for 2 degrees higher than target, and then my mash
would more or less 'average' my target temperature over the course of
my mash. I don't think any of that really matters so long as we
are consistent in what we do.
I realize that someone can probably always propose a cheaper
alternative no matter what we say, but you were suggesting a likely
need to invest maybe hundreds of dollars, whereas I was showing that it
can be done for about a hundred bucks in the worst case where you will
need to buy a turkey fryer (pot and burner), propane tank, ice chest,
and braided hose -- and for as little as maybe just ten bucks if all
you need is the braided hose -- plus I get multiple duty out of my
equipment: my ice chest is still just an ice chest that I can use for
other things, and I also fry turkeys (they are excellent if you've
never had one) and boil crawdads in my turkey fryer. A 10-gallon
pot probably doesn't come with the accessories that you need for those
extra benefits: the support, lifting hook, and thermometer for the
turkey, and a basket for the crawdads (or catfish, fries, and hush
puppies). And even after frying something in oil, cleaning the
pot well enough to still have good head retention is not really a
problem -- mostly just long soaks with hot soapy water, some slight
elbow grease, and some very good rinsing.
Cheers.
Bill Velek
3/31/08