Beer Experimentation
So, I've done mead for a while now. And much as I love mead and mead making, for it to be a hobby which is maintainable on its own in the long term it demands I ramp up production. A TON! The reason is, making a good batch of mead can really only be as fast as about a batch every 6 months. And then the quality is generally not very good. So, really, I don't truly get into a mead batch for up to a year after starting it.
That is certainly no reason for me to stop doing it. But it doesn't really save me anything. It is just an infrequent hobby. If I wanted it to be truly beneficial to me, I'd need to brew enough at a time to last me a year or more. And I'd probably want some variety. Not to mention, that first year without any mead would SUCK. Well, not really, it would just be the same as it is now. I would drink other things. But, it is easy to lose interest with those waits, and I don't think I'd be an every day mead drinker even if I could manage that much mead fermenting and aging.
In the last few years I've really stopped drinking mass produced beers and gone more down the route of smaller local and/or craft beers. In some ways this is great. I have a much greater appreciation for beer now and I generally drink less (though I drink more often). I was totally uninspired by other beers and would generally by a 6 or 12 pack of something generic and down it all in one night with my wife or it would sit in the fridge until went skunky. And we did this MAYBE once a month. With craft beers I'd say we average closer to a pint a night (accounting for nights where he zero or 2+).
So, no longer drinking 3-6 bottles a day, but certainly consuming far more over say, a month or a year.
But, craft beer drinking is not like regular beer drinking. And not just because the taste (and often alcohol content) are far different. If you find one you like, you can't be sure it will always be available. By contrast, my wife used to like Budweiser and we can get that whenever we want. Also, not all craft beers have reliable quality. I've had completely flat cans, I've had cans with tons of sediment and others with none. And I've had cans that taste completely different from the last round I bought. And all of these experiences can be had with a single brew from a single company.
Anyway, at present, as stated, we usually down a quart between the two of us a night. This can run anywhere from $6-10/night. Not terribly expensive. But it is enough that it adds up. Put another way, it is between $180-300/month for roughly 30L of beer.
So, with my experience making mead under my belt, I decided to go check out what it would cost to do a beer kit. $32.50 later (including sanitizer, only $25 without) and I have a 5 gallon jug that is less than a week along. That will be in and around 20L or beef. This kit claims to take just 2 weeks, but most recipes online seem to lean towards 3-4 weeks, especially if bottling rather than kegging. That is somewhere in the ball park of 1/6th to 1/12 the time it would take me to get a drinkable mead. Which also means I need less volume. And, importantly, less patience. 10 gallons (or 2 batches) would easily get me through a full month while the next batch is brewing.
At those costs the 1L we drink on average a night becomes $1.63 or 16-27% of what my current craft beers are costing me. I'd have to drink 4x more (at a minimum) just to make home brewing as costly as buying. Now, truth be told, most recipes online quote prices higher than that. But generally that means either more complex flavors or higher alcohol or both. And in either case I generally drink less. More flavor and complexity leaves me wanting to savor it more and higher alcohol content means drunk faster which both increases odds of a hangover (not young any more) and decreases ability to taste beer. And, the costlier end of the recipes only seems to about double the cost, which still sees me saving half the price or more.
So, the beer experiment is this. Right now I have 1x5 gallon batch on the go. Once it is bottled I'll likely start another, but this time from an extract recipe. Each time I bottle a batch $50 will go into a fund to buy more equipment (kegerator is what I want next, then maybe a dedicated burner and kettles so I can move up to partial mash or all grain with less headaches).
The hope is that in 3 months time I'm primarily drinking my own beer. In 6 months time, that I my beers are good enough that I don't miss craft beers at all. In 1 years time that I have a 2-3 tap kegerator and in 2 years time I'm doing all grain brews at least some of the time.
I don't think the schedule is all that aggressive. I have brewing experience from mead making and I understand beers well enough and have put in a lot of time in research on top of that of late. Putting the $50 aside per batch is to give me incentive to keep going and a small reward for not spending that money on craft beer from the store. If I can drop buying beer and maintain roughly the same rate of consumption even with the $50 "donation" I should actually be saving money. And, if I get up to about 2 batches a month that would be $1200 to put towards a kegerator after the first year.
I'm interested in the kegerator because I really don't look forward to bottling. Sanitizing, priming and filling 25-30 bottles a batch sounds like textbook "not fun". It also supposedly means getting drinkable beer quicker (CO2 cans carbonate in minutes vs 1-2 weeks for secondary ferment). If can get or build one that holds 3+ kegs and has 2-3 taps I'll always have a variety of cold beer that will take me significantly less time to get out of the fermenter.
And, being able to get to a point where I have and can produce enough to keep me from falling back to other sources in a month or less is a HUGE benefit. I don't see my self stopping mead making either. In fact, I think this makes me more excited about that. I'll probably stick to 1 gallon mead batches and use those for special occasions. I already have all of the equipment.
Anyway, time will tell how well I stick to this.
That is certainly no reason for me to stop doing it. But it doesn't really save me anything. It is just an infrequent hobby. If I wanted it to be truly beneficial to me, I'd need to brew enough at a time to last me a year or more. And I'd probably want some variety. Not to mention, that first year without any mead would SUCK. Well, not really, it would just be the same as it is now. I would drink other things. But, it is easy to lose interest with those waits, and I don't think I'd be an every day mead drinker even if I could manage that much mead fermenting and aging.
In the last few years I've really stopped drinking mass produced beers and gone more down the route of smaller local and/or craft beers. In some ways this is great. I have a much greater appreciation for beer now and I generally drink less (though I drink more often). I was totally uninspired by other beers and would generally by a 6 or 12 pack of something generic and down it all in one night with my wife or it would sit in the fridge until went skunky. And we did this MAYBE once a month. With craft beers I'd say we average closer to a pint a night (accounting for nights where he zero or 2+).
So, no longer drinking 3-6 bottles a day, but certainly consuming far more over say, a month or a year.
But, craft beer drinking is not like regular beer drinking. And not just because the taste (and often alcohol content) are far different. If you find one you like, you can't be sure it will always be available. By contrast, my wife used to like Budweiser and we can get that whenever we want. Also, not all craft beers have reliable quality. I've had completely flat cans, I've had cans with tons of sediment and others with none. And I've had cans that taste completely different from the last round I bought. And all of these experiences can be had with a single brew from a single company.
Anyway, at present, as stated, we usually down a quart between the two of us a night. This can run anywhere from $6-10/night. Not terribly expensive. But it is enough that it adds up. Put another way, it is between $180-300/month for roughly 30L of beer.
So, with my experience making mead under my belt, I decided to go check out what it would cost to do a beer kit. $32.50 later (including sanitizer, only $25 without) and I have a 5 gallon jug that is less than a week along. That will be in and around 20L or beef. This kit claims to take just 2 weeks, but most recipes online seem to lean towards 3-4 weeks, especially if bottling rather than kegging. That is somewhere in the ball park of 1/6th to 1/12 the time it would take me to get a drinkable mead. Which also means I need less volume. And, importantly, less patience. 10 gallons (or 2 batches) would easily get me through a full month while the next batch is brewing.
At those costs the 1L we drink on average a night becomes $1.63 or 16-27% of what my current craft beers are costing me. I'd have to drink 4x more (at a minimum) just to make home brewing as costly as buying. Now, truth be told, most recipes online quote prices higher than that. But generally that means either more complex flavors or higher alcohol or both. And in either case I generally drink less. More flavor and complexity leaves me wanting to savor it more and higher alcohol content means drunk faster which both increases odds of a hangover (not young any more) and decreases ability to taste beer. And, the costlier end of the recipes only seems to about double the cost, which still sees me saving half the price or more.
So, the beer experiment is this. Right now I have 1x5 gallon batch on the go. Once it is bottled I'll likely start another, but this time from an extract recipe. Each time I bottle a batch $50 will go into a fund to buy more equipment (kegerator is what I want next, then maybe a dedicated burner and kettles so I can move up to partial mash or all grain with less headaches).
The hope is that in 3 months time I'm primarily drinking my own beer. In 6 months time, that I my beers are good enough that I don't miss craft beers at all. In 1 years time that I have a 2-3 tap kegerator and in 2 years time I'm doing all grain brews at least some of the time.
I don't think the schedule is all that aggressive. I have brewing experience from mead making and I understand beers well enough and have put in a lot of time in research on top of that of late. Putting the $50 aside per batch is to give me incentive to keep going and a small reward for not spending that money on craft beer from the store. If I can drop buying beer and maintain roughly the same rate of consumption even with the $50 "donation" I should actually be saving money. And, if I get up to about 2 batches a month that would be $1200 to put towards a kegerator after the first year.
I'm interested in the kegerator because I really don't look forward to bottling. Sanitizing, priming and filling 25-30 bottles a batch sounds like textbook "not fun". It also supposedly means getting drinkable beer quicker (CO2 cans carbonate in minutes vs 1-2 weeks for secondary ferment). If can get or build one that holds 3+ kegs and has 2-3 taps I'll always have a variety of cold beer that will take me significantly less time to get out of the fermenter.
And, being able to get to a point where I have and can produce enough to keep me from falling back to other sources in a month or less is a HUGE benefit. I don't see my self stopping mead making either. In fact, I think this makes me more excited about that. I'll probably stick to 1 gallon mead batches and use those for special occasions. I already have all of the equipment.
Anyway, time will tell how well I stick to this.
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