Brew Cost Calculator

A typical 5-gallon (19-liter) all-grain batch costs roughly $35-$60 in ingredients and consumables: about $20-$30 of grain and malt, $5-$10 of hops, $7-$12 for yeast, plus water, energy, caps, and sanitizer. That works out to roughly $0.65-$1.10 per 12-oz bottle. Extract and kit batches run a bit higher per bottle because the malt extract and kits cost more than raw grain. Enter your own local ingredient prices in the calculator above for an exact number.

Usually yes on ingredients alone. A 5-gallon batch at $46 in ingredients makes about 53 twelve-ounce bottles at $0.87 each — versus roughly $1.83 per bottle for a $10.99 six-pack of comparable craft beer, a saving of about 53%. The honest math adds equipment: a $250 starter setup paid back over the savings takes about 5 batches to break even. Use the "Is it cheaper?" comparator above with your store prices to get your personal verdict.

Plan on $35-$60 for ingredients and consumables per 5-gallon batch: $20-$30 grain, $5-$10 hops, $7-$12 yeast, $1-$3 water and energy, $3-$6 for caps, sanitizer, and priming sugar. Equipment is separate — a basic starter kit is $100-$250, amortized across dozens of batches. The calculator above breaks a batch into line items so you can see exactly where the money goes.

From a $46 five-gallon batch, a US pint (16 oz) costs about $1.15 and a UK pint (568 ml) about $1.30 in ingredients. Compare that with $5-$8 for a craft pint at a bar and the savings are obvious. The calculator shows per-pint, per-liter, and per-bottle costs side by side for your own recipe.

Five gallons is 640 fluid ounces, so you get about 53 twelve-ounce bottles, 40 pints, 29 twenty-two-ounce bombers, or 25 750-ml bottles — minus a small loss for trub and spillage. The calculator lets you pick your bottle size and set a waste percentage to get an honest bottle count.

Yes, per bottle. All-grain is the cheapest route (roughly $0.65-$1.10 per bottle) because bulk grain is inexpensive. Extract batches cost more (around $0.75-$1.25 per bottle) since someone else did the mashing and drying for you. Ingredient kits are the most expensive per bottle ($0.90-$1.50) but the simplest. The calculator has all three modes so you can compare them for the same batch size.

A 5-gallon corny keg holds the same as about 53 twelve-ounce bottles, so ingredient cost is identical to a bottled batch — roughly $35-$60. Kegging skips bottles and caps but adds equipment (keg, CO2 tank, regulator, ~$150-$250) and CO2 refills of a few dollars per keg. Enter your setup under the equipment section to see the amortized cost.

Add up every line item: (grain weight × price per pound) + (hops weight × price per ounce) + yeast + water + energy + consumables (caps, sanitizer, priming sugar). Divide the total by the number of bottles the batch yields: batch gallons × 128 ÷ bottle ounces. That gives cost per bottle; multiply by 16 ÷ bottle ounces for cost per pint, or divide by batch liters for cost per liter. The calculator does all of this automatically and shows the full breakdown.

It can, and the break-even point is usually closer than people think. A $250 equipment setup against savings of ~$50 per batch versus store-bought craft beer breaks even after about 5 batches. After that, every batch is nearly pure savings. The honest caveat from experienced brewers: don't count your time — treat brewing as a hobby that happens to produce cheap beer. The equipment tab above computes your personal break-even.

The costs beginners forget: sanitizer and caps every batch ($3-$6), water and energy ($1-$4), equipment replacement (hoses, airlocks, hydrometers), ingredients lost to failed batches, and shipping on online orders. The two biggest hidden costs are actually time (a brew day is 4-6 hours) and upgrades — most brewers spend more on better gear over time. The extras fields in the calculator are there for exactly these line items.

Three moves cut costs the most: buy grain in bulk sacks (50-55 lb) instead of by the pound — often 30-40% cheaper; reuse yeast by harvesting and washing it across 3-5 batches; and buy hops in pound bags or grow your own. Brewing all-grain instead of extract is the single biggest structural saving. The saver-scenarios section in the calculator models bulk grain, bulk hops, and yeast reuse so you can see the dollar impact.

Brewers debate this endlessly. The common convention is to quote ingredient-only cost per bottle (it is the fair comparison for "is brewing cheaper than buying"), and treat equipment as a separate one-time investment with its own break-even calculation. This calculator follows that convention: the headline per-bottle number is ingredients and consumables only, with an optional equipment-amortization toggle if you want the fully-loaded number.

Commercial brewing is a different world: a craft brewery's ingredient cost can be under $0.30 per pint at scale, but labor, rent, utilities, licensing, distribution, and taxes dominate the real cost. This calculator is built for homebrew-scale batches (1-10 gallons); it does not model commercial overhead, licensing, or excise tax. Use it for personal batches only.

Homebrewing laws vary by country and by US state — check your local regulations before brewing, and you must be of legal drinking age in your jurisdiction. These calculators are planning estimates for personal hobby use, not professional or financial advice. Never sell homebrew without the proper commercial licenses, and never distill spirits at home — that is illegal in many jurisdictions.

A case of 24 twelve-ounce bottles is 2.25 gallons, so from a $46 five-gallon batch the ingredient cost is roughly $20-$21 per case. The same case of comparable craft beer at the store runs $35-$45. Scale any batch in the calculator and it will show the per-case and per-24-pack cost automatically.

Yes — it is one of the highest-ROI savings in homebrewing. A $8-$10 liquid yeast pack used once costs $8-$10 per batch; harvested and reused across 4 batches it costs about $2-$2.50 per batch, saving $25+ over those batches with good sanitation. The yeast field accepts a "reuse across N batches" value so the saving flows straight into your per-bottle cost.