The economics of homebrew are fairly obvious. The govt gouges a huge chunk of tax from brewers (far more than for small wine manufacturers) and by making your own you avoid that tax burden. An initial outlay of $80 gets you a brew kit with all the gear you need to make 20litres of reasonable beer - so a cost of $4 /litre or a just over a dollar a stubbie. After a few kit brews you can graduate to partial-mash brewing and make pretty much the beer you want to drink for at most $60. My last brew gave me 23 litres of 6.5% bitter that tasted better than most mainstream domestic beers - definitely cost effective.
Cheesemaking is different because of the lack of tax. The major cost is that of the milk, and that depends on what milk you buy. The best for cheesemaking is non-homogenised whole-cream milk, which means the cream hasn't been mixed in with the milk (it's 'milk like you used to get in bottles with cream on top'). Note it's still pasteurised, because unlike healthy offerings like cigarettes, high-sugar foods and caffeine-laden energy drinks it is illegal to sell raw milk in Australia. It's hard to get nonhomogenised milk that isn't organic (and hence expensive), but you can use homogenised milk and a dose of calcium chloride to keep the cost down.
I made halloumi the other day with 4 litres of homogenised milk and 2 litres of goats milk - so total cost of around $12 ($8 of it the goats milk). That gave me almost 700g of halloumi (the redness in the top disc is due to diced chilli mixed into the cheese)
and almost 100g of ricotta. That's pretty much breaking even given the price of halloumi in the supermarkets, but of course there's also the satisfaction of knowing it's home-made. If I hadn't used the goats milk it would have been significantly cheaper, but I guess you have to pay a premium for the great taste of goat.....
Cheesemaking is different because of the lack of tax. The major cost is that of the milk, and that depends on what milk you buy. The best for cheesemaking is non-homogenised whole-cream milk, which means the cream hasn't been mixed in with the milk (it's 'milk like you used to get in bottles with cream on top'). Note it's still pasteurised, because unlike healthy offerings like cigarettes, high-sugar foods and caffeine-laden energy drinks it is illegal to sell raw milk in Australia. It's hard to get nonhomogenised milk that isn't organic (and hence expensive), but you can use homogenised milk and a dose of calcium chloride to keep the cost down.
I made halloumi the other day with 4 litres of homogenised milk and 2 litres of goats milk - so total cost of around $12 ($8 of it the goats milk). That gave me almost 700g of halloumi (the redness in the top disc is due to diced chilli mixed into the cheese)
and almost 100g of ricotta. That's pretty much breaking even given the price of halloumi in the supermarkets, but of course there's also the satisfaction of knowing it's home-made. If I hadn't used the goats milk it would have been significantly cheaper, but I guess you have to pay a premium for the great taste of goat.....
Me: THE ECONOMICS OF HOMEBREW!!!
ReplyDeleteJonny: Yeah, I read that, it was really interesting.
Me: HE PUT CHILLI IN HIS CHEESE. HE MADE CHEESE WITH CHILLI IN IT!!!!!!!!!!