Wow! All I can say is that it is expensive to rebuild a brew house, home brewing lab, and kegging/dispensing setup from scratch. When I first started to brew, I was a single man with a small single family home that I owned (well, the bank and I owned the home). I was able to acquire gear as I advanced in the hobby. I got married five years after I started to brew. My gear went with me when we moved to a new larger home that we built on a sizable piece of land. We started our family after we moved into the new home. I stopped brewing a couple of years after my twins were born. The way I was set up to brew was not safe with toddlers and twin toddlers are a lot of work, so my brewing slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped. That is when I sold off most of my brew house and lab gear. When I started to brew again, I still had my brewing refrigerator and a lot of small, but significant stuff that I kept. This time around, I am starting from scratch and it is a wake-up call. It has been quite a project to get back to where I was when I stopped brewing. It has given me perspective as to what it is like for new brewers today. Sure, there is a lot of gear available that was not available when I started to brew, but the availability of that gear has raised the bar on what is acceptable in the hobby. I put my first kegging system together for $75.00 and that included two pin-lock kegs, a new regulator, picnic taps, and a used steel 20lb C02 cylinder. The same setup today is well over $200.00.
I can only suggest drinking enough beer to drive down the per unit cost😎
But yea, there is a lot of nice stuff out there to buy.
I think that it is because we have grown out of a mad monk squad cottage industry to a life-style industry. Early adopters had to bootstrap themselves. We were happy with much simpler setups because that was all that was possible. Today, there is so much cool gear that a newbie can find himself/herself overwhelmed by options. I think about the options for a brew stove when I started. We had the jet engine-style turkey fryers that were a pipe and an orifice and the Superb PC-100 30K BTU ring burner-based stove. Most of us chose the Superb PC-100 because one could get 10 to 12 batches out a of 20lb propane tank with that stove if one used one’s house range for mashing. The PC-100 is the stove that John Palmer references during his early brewing.
All hobbies are expensive.
Yea but golf costs a lot and leaves you frustrated, home brewing costs a lot and leaves you with beer.
I’ve kept a running total of equipment and can say if I had to go all in with my complete setup today I wouldn’t even dream of starting up. I would have to go a less expensive route. Having said that, I landed at my current setup bit by bit over a very long time.
A friend as multiples of top end road and mountain bikes. $$$
Keep your eye on the used market, as many get into the hobby, many leave the hobby. You might find what you need that way.
Your life-style comment rings very true to me. I regularly see people selling thousands of dollars of shiny stainless only used a few times. It’s clear some people build out very nice high capacity systems only to find they don’t like brewing as much as they thought they would (I guess).
The old ways are still available. BIAB can be especially low cost.
Other than kegs (which I only bought after I realized I was “all in”), I have spent peanuts on brewing.
THIS^^^^ Expensive equipment is something you want, not need. If you truly want to brew it can be done on a shoestring.
Indeed. I am still brewing on my stovetop. I do not own a turkey fryer or kegs or CO2 or a kettle bigger than 4 gallons or a chiller or a fermentation fridge or a robot or…
It can be dirt cheap. I’m even more “pragmatic” than Denny. Yet somehow I still make good beer, which occasionally even wins awards & accolades. My roggenbier turned out pretty dang fantastic. If there was any left and any competitions, if I had enough, I’d gladly send it in, however I think I only have one bottle left, it disappeared quick. That’s the sign of (1) a good beer, (2) a very small batch (also true!), or (3) both.
If money were a big factor and I were like Mark, starting back from scratch, I would go with one of the less expensive urn-style 5 gallon set ups and a 400 micron brew bag. That covers mashing and boiling and, coupled with a bucket to ferment in, pretty much gets you back into it. The more money I had to throw at it, I would consider a larger urn-style, BIAB and 240 V system with a manual hoist.
If really pressed to spend as little as anything, I’d go stove top and small batch, passing the mash and wort through a colander into the boil pot.
One of the reasons it would be a bigger investment for you, is because you are experienced. You can certainly start with stovetop brewing and extract brews, but you’ve evolved past that at this point. I grew piecemeal from stovetop extract, bottles and a sink ice bath; to stovetop BIAB, then added kegs, a mash cooler, fermentation chamber, kegerator, Foundry, etc. over the years as I got more invested in the hobby. If I had to start all over, I’d want all my gear from the beginning. It would be a much bigger investment on a per annum basis, compared to adding it over the course of 8 years or so.
There’s also been inflation in the past 30 years 
There is a lot of stuff out there to spend money on, that’s for sure. Some are more expensive, but there are also some serious bargains. An all in one electric system for $400 and a few plastic bottles to ferment in is a damn good deal.
That’s just the facts of life brother. Things today are more expensive than in the day. I retired from a 40 year career in radio recently and during that career my personal music consumption followed my professional path… vinyl segued to CDs and CDs to digital files. This past year I began to return to vinyl and albums that originally cost my $6 are now $32. Turntables that once set me back $40 are now $400. Welcome to the 21st century.
If I am honest with myself, the biggest issue was all the stuff that I bought that I later found out I didn’t need. Would have been better off taking a “measure twice, cut once philosophy” in my purchases. Oh well, it’s been a fun ride.
But that would require a level of self control that I so rarely possess in terms of this hobby…cheers!
All I can say is that I have spent over 13K on my brew system and I don’t regret it at all, I cringe, but no regrets! Brewing and wine making are just one of my hobbies. I spent big and bought what I feel will last the remainder of my life. Sure, I could have bought a bass boat or a cool little convertible but you can only take those out in nice weather and they sit undercover all winter long. I can brew whenever my heat desires!
If you have a passion and a love for something that gives you real pleasure then the money shouldn’t be a top consideration.
Last I heard, there ain’t no beer in heaven.
I agree, but at this point in my life, I know the difference between quality and make-do gear. For example, a keggle costs next to noting if one can look past the fact that the keg is owned by the brewery embossed on it. I personally would never use a keggle again because keggles are horribly inefficient to heat. I only purchase or build kettles with welded fittings. That has been my personal preference since I built my first and only keggle. One area where I have become more flexible is fermentation vessel material. I only fermented in glass after I acquired my first 6.5 gallon acid bottle. At that point in time, I would have never considered going back to buckets and their residual odors, but I was a very strong, surefooted guy when I started to brew. Glass is not even on my radar these days and it was not on my radar during my previous pass through the hobby. That being said, I cannot think of another piece of gear that has increased in price as much without a corresponding increase in quality as the lowly 6.5-gallon food-grade bucket. I paid $5 for my first 6.5-gallon bucket. Some places are now charging as much as $20 for 6.5-gallon food-grade buckets.
The reality is that after one has been brewing and acquiring better gear for a number of years, it is very difficult to go back to the beginning. Plus, step-wise improvement may reduce “at time of acquisition” cost, but it raises overall cost, as the cost of previously acquired and discarded gear has to be included in total cost of ownership. While I recommend that beginning brewers start with the minimum kit they need to brew until they are certain that brewing is not a passing fad, anyone who was in the hobby for a number of years and had to take a break that was long enough to sell off gear should think long and hard about taking that path. It is better to “buy once, cry once” if one knows what one wants. Sure, it will take one longer to start back up because few people can lay out that much money at one time without taking it out of savings or going into debt. I have been acquiring gear using my monthly disposable income and I am purchasing it all new. I always shoot for the best price I can get for off-the-self gear and parts to build gear. For example, I purchased a new Taprite T742 regulator for $49.00 shipped to my home. Sure one can purchase a new T742 for $49.00 from Beverage Elements, but they charge shipping. On the other hand, I purchased a two-pack of 5-gallon AEB soda kegs for $200.00 shipped with tax from Beverage Elements. My LHBS sells the same keg for $125 each. That is a $50 savings and small savings add up while building out a new brew house, home brewing lab, and beer dispensing setup. I could purchase used kegs for half of that cost, but then I would have to rebuild them. I have had my fill of removing stickers, cleaning, and polishing, not to mention replacing o-rings, poppets, pressure relief valves, and lids. Those half-price used kegs are no longer a bargain after one has to invest $20 on complete set of o-rings and two new poppets plus a lot of one’s time to bring them back into working condition. Let’s not forget about the used kegs we have received that will never be gas tight. Used kegs were a bargain when they were $10 to $15 each and new kegs were over $100, but it does not make sense to blindly go used these days, not remotely so.
One area where I have killed it has been lab glassware. I always purchase new surplus if it is available. I purchased 72 new-in-box re-usuable Kimble culture tubes with caps for under $40 shipped. That is 1/4th the cost if purchased from a labware supplier and much less than what some homebrewing stores charge for non-resusable culture tubes (just because a screw cap culture tube is glass does not mean that it is re-usable). I purchased a box of six new Corning 3980 500ml Erlenmeyer flasks for under $30 shipped to my door. That is less than $5 per flask shipped to my door. MoreBeer charges almost double that price for an off-brand 500ml flask.
By the way, hobbies are expensive. I have been playing electric and acoustic guitar off-and-on since high school. I used to play in gigging bands when I was young. What is crazy is that I have gear today that I would have killed to own when I was a gigging musician. However, then again, the gear I owned when I was a gigging musician took a beating.