So I have had half dozen successful brews with all grain kits. I'm using an all in one system which works really well with or without a bag. I sparge with a cooler and normally 3 gallons of 170 degree water. Because I'm using an all in one system I've had to modify the instructions that come with the all grain kits which are mostly made for guys doing on the stove or burner DIY setups. Point is that now I am getting very confident in my modifications and methods of brewing with the equipment I have.
Now I want to go to the next level. I have already bought some hops and ten pounds of two row malt. I'm wondering how to reduce my costs and still produce stellar craft brews. What is the level of experience out there in buying for example, 50 pound bags of two row malt and a pound or more at a time buying various pellet hops and then crafting your own recipes? Cheaper? Not worth it? I'm mostly an ale guy. Yeasts for this seem to be pretty common. I will most always stick to 5 gallon recipes. So hopefully this will get the discussion going. I'm wanting to learn as much as possible and the more I know the more questions I have. Thanks... Chip
I've gone the sack route for about 6 years now. Yes, it is cheaper, if you can pick it up yourself, otherwise, don't bother, the shipping is outrageous. Several of the online shops won't ship a sack free, but somehow, if you order the equivalent of a sack, they will. (but you won't save on the grain itself of course)
Sacks are great when you brew 2+times a month, or brew more than 5gal at a time. (and you noted you won't be brewing large batches) You can save up to 50% of the malt cost that way, but do the math—overall, it doesn't make a big dent in the final price of the batch. (every penny counts, but malt may not be the first or best place to save)
Hops and yeast are the 2 most expensive ingredients. (outside of real fruit if you're into that) Other than growing your own hops, or avoiding IPAs, there isn't much opportunity there. However, HopsDirect usually has great deals, especially on leaf hops. YakimaValley also runs deals on off-year 1# and ½# bags. You can get really good T-90 New World hops for $1 or less per ounce if you watch the sales.
That leaves yeast as the money glutton, and I see that answer is well covered already. Having your own yeast bank, especially if you have other brewers near you to share, is probably the biggest bang for your buck. And yes, you can save yeast from a cake if you pitched dry yeast.
If you brew every 2 weeks or so, with the same strain, and you plan your brew days and packaging days properly, you can even avoid the yeast saving step and just pitch right into the fermenter after packaging. I've done this plenty of times, even with a day in between and have had no off flavors or other issues. Like saving yeast though, you're only going to get so many 'true' generations out of that initial pitch, but then you now have a House Strain that you might like.
A final alternative is to save some yeast from the fresh pack, making a starter with the rest for pitching. Then every time you need some, just pull off that originally saved yeast. (you'll need a starter every time of course) Some folks just save it in the fridge, but with a small investment, you can freeze it too for even more shelf-life. And remember, you can probably keep each of those pulls off the original pack for 8 generations. If you get into freezing and slants, and don't mind building starters in multiple steps, you can get probably 1000 batches off one pack.
