I buy almost exclusively from Morebeer. They have a warehouse in the same state so it only makes sense, and they're nice to deal with. Pricing on their malt by the 5 pound bag is basically the same /lb as buying it in 50 lb sacks. I do have a way to get base malt cheaper, (basically no shipping), but all in all a 50# sack shipped is around $60. So not much over $1/lb. If you pay their shipping though, now it's a wash for 50# vs 5#.
Hops by the pound can be had for as little as $8-10 depending on the variety. I personally am not sold on spending double the money for all these "proprietary" hybrids. I do occasionally, but most can be had for a lot less if you are willing to say I didn't use the en-vogue variety. For instance, I just made a pale ale using Mandarina Bavaria and it's every bit as good as anything Citra, if not better, and it cost almost nothing. $8/lb. Why on earth would I pay double? For that matter, I'll take Liberty any day over Import Hallertau. It's derived from it and has more flavor. Not only do I not need to pay for it to be shipped 5000 miles, but IMO the US Liberty stuff is far better. It's funny how people get all caught up in the origin of ingredients, but ya know there's a reason the US is the worlds largest exporter of food products. It's because stuff grows better here. I've used import hops recently and 'weak' would be a generous term for it. Did I really pay double for that garbage?.... Yes, yes I did...
I did a spreadsheet some months ago for 4 beers I keep on rotation. All 10 gallon batches with ~10-1/2 to 11 gal into kegs. The 4 beers (Without yeast added in since often I'm re-pitching) total ingredients cost including a very generous amount of propane to do the batches, $29.19, 34.83, 40.68 and 49.01. Even with a pretty major yeast debacle recently, the cost of brewing (once you own the equipment) is nearly lost in the noise of any household budget. The $49 batch uses 2 lb of honey...
Topic: Wyeast Raising Prices (Read 2312 times)
