Attempting to brew in Okinawa

[Ryukyubrew]

Hey everyone! I'm a new homebrewer and just moved to Japan, the ingredient lists are all strange and the gear all to expensive! I prefer IPA's,Stouts, and Ports but don't know where to begin when it comes to creating a mini mash kit or going full grain as far as ingredients and measurements...If anyone has any advice It'd be greatly appreciated until then I'm stuck saving bottles of overpriced japanese beer which while not bad is far from exciting....THanks to ALL!!

 

[HopLife]

Start by browsing HBT and looking for forum categories where you have questions, then read the 'Sticky' topics. These are posts that have been designated by the moderators as having exceptional value and are closely monitored and updated. There is a section on just ingredients and recipes as well as sections related to All grain brewers and equipment. There are a lot of homebrew devices that you can easily make from common used parts but you need to be creative and handy with a few tools.

Beer is essentially just Water, Yeast, malted Barley and Hops. Which ingredients are hardest to come by in Okinawa?

In terms of equipment:

My setup is pretty standard for a cheapskate that is good with HBT.

Grain and grist: purchased and milled at local store

Hops and yeast: Local store or grow my own

water: Tap with minor amendments (my water is too soft for most brewing)

Hot liquor tank : I have two; a big cooler that is HDPE 2 and my old 6 gallon kettle

Mash tun: converted cooler (HDPE2) with CPVC manifold

Kettle: old keg with top cut off and a valve (keggle)

wort cooling method: I have 2; homemade counter flow chiller and homemade immersion chiller

Fermenters: 1 15 gallon hdpe primary fermenter and three 5 gallon glass carboys.

Post questions, hopefully this will get you started.

The other obvious suggestion is to read a couple of good books on brewing; palmer and papzian are good for basics.

 

[Goyagon]

If ure military a lot of people use the army post office to save on shipping I think. If I were you I would do extract brewing with steeping specialty malts. This would be your best compromise for quality ease space and shipping costs. You would start off needing a good sized pot for boils I would say 3 gal pot minimum and ideally a 7 gal pot for 5 gal batches. The way it works is you dissolve the extract syrup in hot water, this replaces the base malts or the majority of the grains. You will also need steeping bags. Then at a temperature of about 153 degrees steep crushed specialty grains and Pelletized hops for an hour or whatever the recipes call for. You would need to adjust your recipes if you use less the the 5 gals of water ( actually 5-6 depending on how much you think will boil off). After this you will need a way to chill your wort (unfermented beer) I use an immersion chiller which is the simplest form of chilling, it attaches to any garden hose and the water that runs through it can be used to water grass.

You will then siphon your beer to a fermentation vessel cheapest and easiest is food grade 6 gal buckets with a hole and an airlock. This stuff can be purchased with a beginners brewing kit. You also need a way to bottle or keg your beer. Bottles can be reused and all Japanese beers don't have screw tops so you can use those. A capper is also needed. If you want to keg that is another process. Most homebrewers use soda kegs, I'm not sure if those are available in Japan and shipping would be crazy from US, you'll have to find the most convenient method ure self .

A begineers brewing lit looks somethig like this http://morebeer.com/view_product/15909/102142/Personal_Home_Brewery_Kit_#1_-_Standard

You'll also need sanitizing solutions which I'm sure you can find in Japan, maybe not Okinawa but there must be some online retailer that sell to restaraunts. If not you can buy it from online homebrew stores. For yeast I would try dry yeast and order a lot at a time or look into maintaining cultures of your own. Almost all ingredients(grains/extract yeast hops) can be bought at sites like morebeer.com if you can locally find them from the Japanese mainland buy that but know that they will have a slightly different taste than American or European ingredients.

Nice name btw I hope you catch the Okinawan reference in mine too.

 

[Ryukyubrew]

Awesome I've looked at ordering carboys but the want upwards of 12000 yen for glass poor selection and I'm no longer military so I can't enjoy the benefits of low shipping...I brewed an all extract pale ale and my second was a mini mash oatmeal stout kit that came out amazing. The kits on the Japanese sites are mostly extract thAt I've seen so I'd like to design something similar to the oatmeal stout kit in varying beer styles of course. I have 2 Vienna lager all extracts from mr beer and the yeast and booster but Okinawa is too warm to reliably ferment a lager right at least until I can control temperature...currently looking into alternative fermenting vessels and I'll be ready to brew if I can piece together something from the odd variety of ingredients on the Japanese sites. Thank a lot for the replies hopin to get to the level that a lot of the guys here are at in my home brew adventure

 

[DirtyOldDuck]

I know that are at least a few other members from Okinawa on HBT, perhaps they can provide you some helpful information. I notice when people on here say they are from Okinawa because I lived there as a teenager in the Seventies. Beautiful island.

 

[Ryukyubrew]

Thanks DD I hope I can get some good tips and info from them and start brewing regularly. Unfortunately or fortunately most will just be passing through for a few years which can work both ways lol. Found a source for a variety of grains just gotta look into fermenters yeast and hop varieties should start building my mash tun next weekend