You’ve heard all-grain brewing is cheaper than extract brewing. Is it true or is a myth?
There are cost differences between the two methods, but what is the real difference. I’ve examined the “must have” equipment required and what the difference is in cost. All-grain takes more time to brew, so you will need to determine if the price difference is worth the cost difference to you. For price references, I’ve used Northern Brewer. There are other places to purchase equipment and ingredients, but I wanted to give you a feel for the differences. The purpose is not to declare one homebrew store better than any other. You might be able to vary the prices a bit with some bargain shopping.
Here's the all-grain, but is it cheaper?
To make a fair comparison between the brewing styles, I’ve picked a simple recipe from the book Beer Captured by Tess and Mark Szamatulski. I’m picking a recipe from the book because it gives a complete recipe for both all-grain and extract, and it is a very simple recipe.
You will need more equipment
I am assuming you already have a 10 gallon pot. I was using a 10 gallon pot long before I made the switch to all-grain. If you do not have a pot capable of a full-wort boil, you will need to add a pot to your list of costs to switch. A 10 gallon pot will cost anywhere between $100-$200 USD.
You need one of these for all-grain. Get the biggest you can!
You will also need a mash tun. The simplest possible mash tun you can construct is a batch sparge mash tun from a cooler. You can buy a all-grain continuous sparging system made from two rubber maid coolers for $249.99 USD. A batch sparging system is much cheaper.
To construct a batch sparging mash tun you will need a 5-day cooler, a cooler conversion kit, and some sort of filter. You can buy the Bazooka screen or construct your own from a bathroom stainless steel braided hose. I’ve done both, but I prefer buying the bazooka screen. The price difference is about $5 USD.
5-day cooler 70-quart
$37.88 (WalMart)
Cooler Conversion Kit
$29.99
Bazooka Screen
$20.50
You can buy a smaller cooler (48-quart) for $28.88, but I would highly recommend getting the largest cooler you can. This allows you to increase capacity or to make some very high gravity brews.
If you do not have a wort chiller, this is also highly recommended. With extract brews you can brew half of the brew and chill it with cold sanitized water. When you do all-grain brews, you are brewing the full wort. It can take a long time to chill 5 gallons of boiling wort. I would add a wort chiller in the “almost necessary” column. The cheapest wort chiller will run $57.99 USD.
The last item in the "highly recommended" list is a propane burner. These cost around $50 USD to $60 USD. They will make your life much better, because you will be able to boil your wort within a reasonable amount of time. If your burner on your stove is electric, you need a propane burner.
This is all the “above and beyond” equipment. The fermenter and other equipment you used for extract brewing is the same for all-grain brewing. This means if you want to switch to all-grain brewing, you will need to spend at least $88.37 USD. If you need the wort chiller or brew pot, you should add those too. Your total out is anywhere between $88.37 USD to $296.36 USD.
Recipe differences
The recipe I selected for comparison is the Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale recipe. Here’s the extract recipe:
5 oz British 55ºL Crystal Malt 3 oz British Chocolate Malt 6 lbs Extra Light Dry Malt Extract 1 ½ oz East Kent Goldings ½ oz Fuggles Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale
Here is the all-grain recipe
9.25 lbs British 2-row Pale Malt 5 oz British 55ºL Crystal Malt 3 oz British Chocolate Malt Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale 25% less hops
The yeast is the same in both recipes, so I will exclude it from the comparison. The all-grain method does use fewer hops, but I have never purchased hops in a smaller increment than 1 ounce. In either recipe we will be buying 2 oz of East Kent Goldings and 1 oz of Fuggles, so I will eliminate the hop comparison as well. Fewer hops will make a difference if your recipes grow larger than 5 gallon batches.
That leaves the grain bill. Since the specialty grains are also the same in both recipes, I am going to compare the prices of malt extract to grain.
The malt extract is $13.50 USD for 6 lbs. The price for grain crushed is $16.18 USD. For this example, the price for all-grain is $2.58 USD higher. Maybe I picked a poor example?
All-grain kits are $0.51 cheaper
The extract English Pale Ale kit from Northern Brewer costs $27.50. The price for the all-grain English Pale Ale kit is $26.99. At these price differences, you would need to make many all-grain kits to recoup the cost of your extra equipment.
So why do so many people believe all-grain is cheaper? If you purchase your grain in bulk, the prices drop dramatically. A 50 lb bag of 2-row will cost about $56.99. You most likely can get this even cheaper from your local homebrew store. The cost of your grain for this recipe is now $10.54 USD - a savings of $2.96 USD. Recipes which use more grain will be even cheaper. If you only make Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, you will need to make a minimum of 30 batches to recoup your costs. If you brew triples, the number of brews will most likely decrease (not by much though).
Why switch at all then?
The point of all this is to help you make an informed decision. The real reason you want to switch to all-grain is for the control over your brews and ultimately to make better beer. According to a Univ. of Saskatchewan study (listed in Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels), here are a few reasons why brewing from grain can be better:
You can produce lighter colored beers from grain
93% of the extracts tested fermented slower than all-grain equivalents
Some extracts will not ferment to the desired final gravity due to higher amounts of dextrins in the extract
Some extracts tested contained high amounts of non-malt syrups (even some labeled 100% malt extract)
With all-grain brewing, you know exactly what is in your beer. If you want to make better beer, all-grain is the way to go. If you are happy with your extract beer and you’re not really looking for that extra edge, save yourself the money and stick with extract. I’ve made great beers for years with extract.
I ultimately switched to all-grain for the control. I want to make the best beer possible, and I want to know exactly what is in my beer. All-grain allows me to fine tune recipes, experiment a bit, and give to me experience to become a better brewer. A better way to look at all of this is, after equipment purchase, it is only a little bit more to go all-grain. You ultimately have to make the choice for yourself. Hopefully this will make your decision more informed.
[EDIT]
There was some feedback in the comments expressing concern about the prices and necessary equipment. Here is Bill Velek's well thought out criticism
From my own _years_ of experiences as an extract brewer using BULK extract instead of just kits, followed by _years_ of experience using BULK grains instead of just kits, I don't know where to begin to explain the large amount of inaccuracy in the above article. It is actually rather astounding, in my opinion, but I don't have time to get into all of that right now. If this criticism is actually published, then I will spend time tomorrow to detail each of my disagreements with the above post.
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-cr...
Well, I tried to post my reply, but as far as I can tell, the whole thing is not there; is there some way to get it to display my entire message? Just in case, I have pasted the info onto my own webpage here -- http://home.alltel.net/billvelek/ferm-1.html -- and discovered, in the process, that I had made an error in listing the price I pay for specialty grains, so I have fixed that and there is now a slight difference between my webpage and the post I originally submitted here. Anyway, I hope you and others will take the time to read it because I actually spent a LOT of my time on it, and I believe I have some very legitimate explanations to the exceptions I take to the original article.
Nothing personal meant toward DJ Brew, either; just a major difference of opinion.
I've included a link to Bill's response and my response to his response. For those that would like to read both of the long comments. The commenting system here cannot handle long comments.
[edit - corrected Bill's name. My bad ]
Thanks for adding the link; I'm sure you can tell that I spent a lot of time on my reply. I just wish you would have gotten my name correct. I'm BILL ... not Bob.
I have a few final comments; this will probably be cut short again, so just in case, my full reply is also posted at http://home.alltel.net/billvelek/ferm-1.html#f
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 bu...
Since the rise in grain prices also raise extract prices (or they better, otherwise you're getting corn syrup) I'm not sure which would be affected more.
Is grain more costly to transport than DME? I don't know. Good question!
My point is the prices are really changing. Grain is sold as a market commodity, so that alone is going to result in a market disconnect.
Basically I wouldn't get to passionate about it... What could be true this quarter may be different the next, and there so many ways to change things with shipping, taxes, brands, quantities, etc... One could probably construct a scenario for most any conclusion.
Maybe it's just me, but the price difference is the least interesting part of the equation. Cheers
Hmmmm. Since I don't extract brew anymore, I don't know what most folks use: DME or LME, but I think I can make an educated guess re transport.
DME weighs less than grain per equal amount of fermentables (per gravity point); DME is all sugar and dextrines, while grain includes proteins and husks. Also, "efficiency" is not an issue with DME (or LME), so you need more pounds of grain shipped than you would need in DME for the same batch. Since DME and grain are dry solids, they can be packaged in sacks and transported the same way.
LME contains water, so it's heavier. HOWEVER, 'bulk' LME is shipped in either metal drums, heavier and MUCH more expensive than sacks, or in plastic buckets, likewise heavier than sacks and substantially more expensive. You can't fit as many pounds of LME as you can DME on the same pallet because drums/buckets waste a lot of space. Transport is based on weight plus how much load can be packed in a space. My bet is that DME is cheapest to ship, gr...
My bet is that regarding 'TRANSPORT', the DME is cheapest, next would be grain, and LME would be the most expensive. But as expensive as DME is, how many people actually extract brew with it? Every kit I've ever heard of is primarily LME.
DJ - I enjoyed this article. Personally I've found all grain to be a bit cheaper in the long run, but if I factor in equipment and recent price changes your assessment is on the mark.
“I can’t think of anything worse after a night of drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name, or how you met, or why they’re dead.”
by Tess and Mark Szamatulski. I’m picking a recipe from the book because it gives a complete recipe for both all-grain and extract, and it is a very simple recipe.
by Ray Daniels), here are a few reasons why brewing from grain can be better:
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