Home brewing in Japan

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OppamaBrendan

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Oppama, 追浜
Hi all, this is my first post.

I live in Kanagawa Japan, south of Yokohama. Looking to share experiences brewing with others in the area, trade brews, etc. I'm still relatively new at all-grain brewing and want to improve my skills, and have been trying to get my foot in the doors of local breweries with no success. I'm going to keep on trying and as my Japanese gets better and my familiarity with brewery processes improves, maybe some day I will be allowed to scrub the floors and toilets.
Cheers:mug:

EDIT: Here are two Google Docs file that has a lot of Japan Homebrewing resources collected from posts across HBT and other websites, lots of links to places to source all sorts of stuff. Last updated January 31, 2013. A big thank you to all home-brewers sharing this info, there is more here than I would have guessed when I moved to Japan!
Resources:https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3Dulupgz-_vTkxNYTdhX3pGeUk/edit
Info from "the thread":https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3Dulupgz-_vcUt5OXVZT3BsM0E/edit

Cheers!:mug:
 
I'm going to start listing Japan sources of supplies here. American military with base addresses can get stuff shipped from US vendors a hell of a lot cheaper than most options withing the country, with an Amazon Prime account some are telling me that they get free shipping on even pots and bayou burners, wish I had that option!

*Please add to this list if you find a new supplier!
*Sakeland, Advanced Brewing, and Homebrewing service are all web-stores here; usually quite expensive - for example Advanced has 300ml bottles of alcohol for sanitation for 800+ yen

Starting with cleaning supplies:
Ethanol Spray - Sakeland, Advanced Brewing, Tokyo Hands, Various drug stores carry bottles of it as well
Morgans Sanitize (a Hydrogen peroxide + stabilizers blend) - Sakeland/Brewland
Pasteurizer 77 (I think this is an ethanol mix of some kind) - Sakeland/Brewland
Dry Bleach Powder - Sakeland/Brewland
Iodophor - Homebrewing Service
Starsan - Homebrewing Service - UPDATE - Feb 22, 2014 one HBT member has confirmed delivery so even though this website looks abandoned they are still in business.
Beer Line Cleaner (Potassium Hydroxide + surfactants) - Homebrewing Service
Oxiclean - versatile - 5kg case of it for 1500 yen at Costco Japan
Hydrogen Peroxide (Oxydol) - Various drug stores, if it says Oxydol it should say H2O2 as well
Iodine (not really used as a sanitizer by itself but as a starch conversion indicator) I bought a bottle at my local drug store under the name "Meiji -イソジン” which is a small green bottle - you want to make sure to get the liquid form NOT the paste.
Liquid Bleach- Everywhere - 100 yen shops have it even
***UPDATE*** Bleach is packaged color coded in kitchen and laundry variations for Japan. The kitchen version is in a green bottle with a pink cap, laundry type in a blue bottle with dark blue cap. The label on the green (kitchen) bleach lists ingredients as: 次亜塩素酸ナトリウム 塩素系,
アルキルアミンオキシド, 水酸化ナトリウム・ アルカリ性 (Sodium hypochlorite chlorine, Alkyl amine oxide, Sodium hydroxide) and the blue bottle lists ingredients as: 次亜塩素酸ナトリウム 塩素系,水酸化ナトリウム アルカリ性
The difference seems to be Alkyl amine oxide which wikipedia lists as a surfactant. I have been using this pink capped bottle in my no-rinse sanitizer solution and never suspected this might be causing head retention issues.
Plain White Vinegar - Costco - Large bottles (4 Liters?) for 500 yen or so.
Potassium Metabisulphate (Campden tablets or powder) - Advanced Brewing
TSP (Trisodium Phosphate) -???
Diversol (chlorinated pink powder) -???
Acetone (I've used it for removing labels) - Nail polish remover from 100 yen shop
Charlie Tally (starsan inventor) talks about sanitizing on this podcast and discusses bleach/water/vinegar rinse-free sanitizing. Do your research if you attempt that as it can be DANGEROUS, but it is by far the cheapest sanitizer I have sources so far at 1oz bleach 5 gallons water 1oz vineagar.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr03-29-07.mp3


Tools for cleaning:
Carboy/bottle washers are consistently "sold out" on the Advanced and Sakeland websites, I don't know of other sources.
Sponges, Brushes, cloths - 100 shops carry plenty of cleaning supplies
Bottle tree -???
Bottle sanitizer "pump" -???
Heat: Costco carries a large aluminum pot (19 Liters) that has a removable steamer tray. I have seen pressure cookers here, but for small items you could put them in your rice cooker and I think it would do a decent job sanitizing with the benefit that it is programmable and stays hot after it finishes until you turn it off.
Countertop dish washers: I have seen a few of these recently at the HOMES store but have not spent time looking at their features to see if they have a sanitize cycle.
 
Cans,Bottles,Kegs!

This next post I am writing out some of the container situation I have observed in Japan. I have only got Canada to compare against in my experience but there are quite a few interesting differences that I want to make a note of for others (and to document them for myself).

Cans (aluminum bottles): A lot of the beer in Japan is sold in cans, and most of the market is for light lagers as is the case pretty much everywhere. Asahi sells big aluminum 2L bottles with a twist cap, I have never reused them but I think it would be fairly convenient if they can hold the pressure of bottle conditioning (do a test first, I have seen videos of people conditioning in mini-kegs that ballooned under pressure). The 2L aluminum bottles have a handle, which is pretty cool. I have seen them in Canada as well as Japan, so check out your beer store if you are interested and in another country. There are lots of twist-lid aluminum bottles used to sell cold coffee in stores as well, so you could theoretically collect a bunch of them and use them instead of glass bottles? Here is a link to the product page of the coffee I have, (made by one of the big beer companies too haha!) its nice that it has stout body, a wider mouth, holds 400 ml, and of course beer will never get light-damaged in a metal can. You could spray paint your aluminum bottles to hide the manufacturers logos if you want.


Bottles: Called "bins" in Japanese, glass bottles are an interesting lot. The places that a lot of bottles are consumed is at restaurants and bars/izakayas/snacks(these are old style bars with old women bartenders). At craft beer bars you will find a lot more selection and often bottles of local brews for take home. Some of the local breweries may only sell bottles onsite. I have yet to see any growlers in use anywhere in Japan, but I am not so well versed in the bar scene as I do not have much money at the moment (1 pint of craft beer usually costs about $10 unless it is on special).
There are 2 systems for bottles that I have noticed in Japan.
1. The first one is for the big bottles brewed by the big 3 breweries. I don't remember the exact size, 750 or 1000ml? Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo each have their own big bottles with their logos molded directly in the glass, usually sold at restaurants for consumption on premises. The breweries reuse these bottles (only their own of course), and there is a collection system based on 3rd party bottle collectors who buy the empty bottles by the crate from the businesses and then sell them back to the breweries. You can buy these bottles for quite cheap, they take crown caps and have paper labels with an easily removed adhesive. Filling a batch of beer in them is going to require less bottles, and you can buy the crates that are designed for storing them at the same time. Just talk to a business that has some sitting outside their bar, they have generally been rinsed out so that they don't create a smell or attract flies while waiting for a bottle vendor to come get them. It's not cool to just take them, even though they appear to just be sitting out with the garbage; the business owner gets a few dollars for each crate and you can afford to give that to them. Obviously you should give them a real good cleaning, they may have baked in the summer sun! You can buy unscented bleach and bottle brushes at the 100 yen shops as stated in the above post about cleaning supplies.

2. Craft beer bottles are not collected by the breweries as the craft brewers are too small to afford a collection fee and their bottle distribution would be so insignificant that it would be unreliable. Due to this, pretty much all the craft bottles actually COST the business owner money to dispose of them. The money they make on the big 3 offsets the cost of recycling the craft bottles. In addition the municipality (at least in my case) may require residents to take glass bottles to the beer/liquor store for disposal. That means a small beer store might have a bunch of craft beer bottles brought to him that he may not have even sold in the first place, but is required to pay for their disposal! That was the case at the liquor store I visited in Kamakura for my bottles. The owner was quite happy to give me ALL his craft beer bottles for free, even taking the time to bag them up for me and calling me a week later to make sure the offer was open at anytime! This meant more money in his pockets so it seems to be a mutually beneficial arrangement! Now for the bad news; because they are not reused, the craft bottles are usually loaded with that super-adhesive to hold their labels on. I mean, really strong stuff, I tried Nail polish remover (Acetone), Vegetable Oil, WD-40, and a lot of scrubbing with the coarse side of sponges to get that stuff off. It was not at all easy to do, and I don't want to do that very often! I have Oxiclean now and have heard that works pretty good... Anyway, all the craft bottles take crown caps except for the Australian imports like (Tooheys and VB are twist-offs).
With either option, you can collect enough bottles for a batch of beer cheaply and quickly. In my case, I got the bottles AFTER I started brewing my beer.

Kegs: Most places that you can consume beer will have a draft beer "Nama Beer" dispenser for at least one of the major brands (Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo). There is a lot of variety of kegs in use here, in valve types (plenty of imports), and in volume (mostly domestic - Asahi started using 7L kegs all the way back in 1977). This is actually pretty damn cool in my perspective, I have seen kegs sized from full 55 Liter to 7 Liter! (those sizes are based on memory so please correct me if I am wrong). Theft is uncommon so I often see tons of kegs piled up outside bars unattended, often there are even full kegs just sitting around on their own like that! I am not saying you should take them, I am just pointing out how there is a nice atmosphere of trust in this action, it makes me feel good to see that trust level. You can rent keg dispensing equipment at liquor stores, and of course the kegs of beer are there as well. The deposit on a keg is pretty small here, something like $10-$15. I bought a dented 15L keg from a liquor store a few years ago, the owner assured me (I asked 3 times with my girlfriend translating) that it was not part of the brewery's "stable" and it was retired due to the tiny bit of damage. I disassembled the keg and brought it back to Canada as carry-on luggage, with a few strange looks of course :D That keg had a "G-system" valve, but I see lots here with sanke and D-sytems as well. I am happy to see that corny kegs are quite actively being used as I see them outside bars and restaurants all the time, often in equal proportion to the regular beer kegs parked there. I do not know if these are being used for beer or soda, or both. Due to the space restrictions a lot of Japanese businesses have, the sizes of kegs are quite small most of the time. That's good news for me, when I switch to kegs again it will be nice to have little kegs; 2 to a batch of beer, or 1 and some bottles, etc... I don't need to brew a giant batch and have to have it on tap for a long time, and I can cool the smallest kegs in the fridge and take them out to the beach or the cherry blossom festivals! I still have to see about how to obtain the kegs legally here though, for now I just want to post info about the sizes/shapes/valves I have seen since it interests me.

Please comment if you would like to make a correction or add to this information, I can edit the posts I make.
Cheers!
 
I am a bit surprised by the cost of large containers here. A 5 gallon (19Liter) plastic food grade pail+lid in Canada would cost me about $5-$8 CAD if I absolutely had to buy one instead of obtain a free one from a restaurant. I have not seen any pails of this type in Japan except at a brew supply for way more than I want to spend on them. Restaurants get their cooking oil in tin cans here. The most popular fermenters in Japan seem to be the 12 Liter PET carboys.

I bought a 20 Liter HDPE water tank for 1000 yen that has a handle, a large screw on lid, and a small screw on lid with a tap. Drilling a hole and adding a 400 yen airlock was easy and the total cost is less than 50% of buying a fermenter from the brew suppliers. Downsides: there is a lot of surface and airspace for smaller batches, and if you move it the plastic sucks in and pulls air back through the airlock. I want it to be cheap, easy to clean, good for aging (low permeability to O2), easy to add an airlock, and between 10 to 20 Liters in volume.

Options and rough prices of fermenters I have seen:
  • Standard glass carboy - mostly unavailable, cost estimate around 10000 yen
  • PET carboy - 12,19, and 23L - from 2000 to 7500 yen
  • Glass traditional carboy -18L -(fancy sake style) - 12500 yen
  • Glass "Umeshu" jars - 2-8L - from 600 to 1400 yen. These could be great for small batches. I have a few of these but they are mostly full of Umeshu and Umeboshi. They have a hard plastic lid and underneath there is a soft plastic snap-on lid that can act as an air-barrier. I have fermented in these, just put the whole thing in a plastic bag and tie it up to prevent bugs getting in, if the bag inflates too much put a pin-hole in it.
  • HDPE water jug - 22L - 1000 yen + 400 yen airlock (or 100 yen of tubing and a blowoff + sanitizer airlock)
  • HDPE water jug with tap added, sold online- 20-30L - 3500 to 4500 yen

As you can see, the options can be very expensive. I always prefer free/recycled sources of equipment instead of new purchases! :D However, I am starting to think about using corny kegs as fermenters now. There seems to be an abundance of them in this country, but I don't know the price and where to buy legally yet. I'd like to hear what other people use for cheap and good fermenters in Japan and where they got them. Keg equipment is a bit of an investment but I suppose I will get kegs eventually.
 
Tokyu Hands has a lot of chemistry supplies.

-erlenmeyer flasks (for preparing starters)
-vials (if you want to make agar slants for yeast cultures)
-pipettes

They also have things like:

-rubber bungs
-iodine
-silicon tubing
-plastic tubing

Should be the best place to get supplies if you're planning to culture yeast in Japan.

They also stock Black Rock LMEs, Muntons DMEs, and a few other homebrewing supplies although I'm pretty sure they've been sitting on the shelf for a long time.
 
I am just getting into brewing here in Japan. One question for people that are bottling. I am getting a brew kit from the US that comes with a bottle capper will that work for Japanese bottles? I want to use the 500ml and the 633ml.
 
Bottle caps are the same in all countries, so they should work fine.
The bottle caps that are sold in Japan are made abroad anyway,
and I've successfully capped imported beer bottles as well so the other way around should be ok also.

Myself, I use Kirin's Heartland beer bottles because they're really sturdy and hold a good 500ml.
 
Great thanks. I have been emptying Ebisu bottles (read drinking them) for my bottle needs. Have saved up enough for a twenty liter batch when I get it all done.
 
The key to collecting bottles by drinking them is to buy decent beer even it costs you a few more yen, so I'd say Ebisu is a good choice :)

You could optionally go to a local Liquor store (Sakaya 酒屋), and ask if they'd sell you empty bottles.
Weather isn't all that bad now and if you manage to get relative new empty bottles, they shouldn't be moldy or dried up on the inside.
 
Yes I could go and buy them empty but... That wouldn't be the true artist way. You know suffering for your art and all that. Have to put in the hard work for the pay off. So guess I better open another one. The things I do for art.
 
You know, you could always ask for help. Get all the hard work off your liver and all that... I'm sure there are plenty of homebrewers in Japan who would be delighted to give a hand.
 
Just got a bottle of Ginga Kogen Wheat Beer - Silver Bottle.
Here's one I opened a few months back:

646406795.jpg


It has a nice layer of sediment on the bottom, so I might get a few vials from Tokyu Hands pretty soon and see if I can culture yeast from it.

This beer is pretty cheap for craft beer, at 250 yen a bottle, and because the beer is made in Japan (Iwate Prefecture, I think) it should be better suited to Japanese climates.
 
I agree that Tokyo hands is good for the lab supplies but I bet we can find a better source! Tokyo hands is generally a bit more expensive for everything, and if we can find a lab or science supply company that takes personal accounts (or figure out group buys) we could be looking at substantial savings... the tubing is cheaper at hardware stores, they all seem to carry soft plastic, braided, and rubber tubing of various sizes. Surume, you were telling me about agar for culturing yeasts. I am interested in someday doind stuff like that, can you post the name or kanji we might find agar under? Is it in the baking ingredients section of supermarkets with gelatine or somewhere else? I would probably start with building tempurature controls and a magnetic stirplate before I did any culturing though. Have you guys seen anything/anywhere to get temp controls? Pretty often people throw out rice cookers and i thought they must have some of the same electronics in them as well as a thermostat... could maybe figure out a hack to turn those into either temp control units or autoclav(ish) sterilizers for small tools. Mpearce, where abouts in Japan are you? Im in the Yokohama area.
 
I agree that Tokyo hands is good for the lab supplies but I bet we can find a better source! Tokyo hands is generally a bit more expensive for everything, and if we can find a lab or science supply company that takes personal accounts (or figure out group buys) we could be looking at substantial savings... the tubing is cheaper at hardware stores, they all seem to carry soft plastic, braided, and rubber tubing of various sizes. Surume, you were telling me about agar for culturing yeasts. I am interested in someday doind stuff like that, can you post the name or kanji we might find agar under? Is it in the baking ingredients section of supermarkets with gelatine or somewhere else? I would probably start with building tempurature controls and a magnetic stirplate before I did any culturing though. Have you guys seen anything/anywhere to get temp controls? Pretty often people throw out rice cookers and i thought they must have some of the same electronics in them as well as a thermostat... could maybe figure out a hack to turn those into either temp control units or autoclav(ish) sterilizers for small tools. Mpearce, where abouts in Japan are you? Im in the Yokohama area.

For temp control I would look at aquarium supplies. I know that some fish need certain temps. If you are thinking external temp controls you could use a simple heated blanket or even the foot warmers that they have at the home centers. I am sure there is a place to get lab supplies. A good place to ask would be a high school. I bet they have a catalog to order from like Askul or something.

I live in a small town called Noda-shi. It is about an hour and a half by train from Tokyo. I work in Tokyo though. So I have a nice commute everyday. So currently I am listening to the Brewing Network podcast. Funny stuff and good information about beer and brewing.
 
Indeed Tokyu Hands is a little expensive, but for some people it may cost less since you don't have to go too far to find one. Amazon also sells some. Another option is at near the JR Kanda Station in Tokyo, called 高野理化硝子株式会社 (Takano Rika Garasu K.K.) which should sell science/lab supplies. The address is:

東京都千代田区鍛冶町2丁目3-1 神田髙野ビル
Tokyo-to, Chiyoda-ku, Kaji-machi 2-3-1, in the Kanda Takano Building.

Their phone number is 03-3252-2641 and they are open from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, and they are closed on weekends and holidays. Although I already got some supplies at Tokyu Hands already, I myself am interested and might take a trip Monday morning next week, so if there are any prices you want me to report on then drop them by.



The thread I was talking about culturing yeast on agar is this one:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/slanting-yeast-133103/

Agar is called 寒天 (Kanten) in Japanese. It should be in any supermarket near gelatine and other cooking supplies, in sheets or in powdered form. I've seen one in powdered form sold in sticks, 4 sticks each containing 4 grams for 240 yen.




As for temperature control, the Yeast Slanting instructions asks you to stick the vials dabbed with yeast in the fridge, so no need for special gear in that phase. When reviving yeast to prepare a starter, I'd probably improvise and just use a thermos/vacuum flask or Mahou-bin (魔法瓶) as they are called in Japan. Or maybe my ghetto external hard-drive method. Of course, there are instructions on making stir-plates on the internet as well.

Stir plates are called マグネチックスターラー (Magunechikku Suta-ra- = Magnetic Stirrer) in Japanese, and the decent ones seem to cost 10,000 yen at the cheapest. I'm currently looking for cheaper deals but I don't have high hopes on this one.

This is the cheapest I have found so far:
http://www.protoolshop.net/paint/etc/54132.htm

The one sold for 8,400 yen supposedly can only stir up to 100ml and runs on batteries only. The one for 10,500 can do up t o 500ml, and I'm hoping it can do a little larger. It runs on AC and comes with a 25mm long stirring rod.
 
Also: Brendan, the die-cast burners I mentioned the other day are known as 鋳物コンロ (chuubutsu konro) in Japanese.

http://www.e-yanagiya.com/shop_l.shtml?239:0

They aren't that expensive, just make sure you get the LP (Liquid Propane) types.

It looks like you can rent out LP gas tanks, found a shop in Tokyo, Omori here:

http://www6.plala.or.jp/kf0328/rentalgasu.htm

10,000 yen is required as a deposit but you get that back when you return the tanks.
I'm sure you can find similar deals in your area.
 
I want to make a temp controlled fermentation chamber, or multiple chambers. The summer I couldn't brew at all, and two batches that I had bottled before summer got so hot in their bottles that they have off flavours. The winter is so far looking a lot less of a hassle, warming up is easier than cooling down so I am not in a rush to build the chamber(s) but a pet store sounds like a good bet for this season, maybe a reptile warming mat would do the trick.

There was a brewing network episode where Chris from Baird brewing called in the drunk line while over in the states, I don't listen to a lot of episodes so it was pretty funny to hear someone local.

Surume, if you are in the Kanda area be sure to stop by Devilcraft! If you haven't been there yet its a great craft beer bar and I have met several homebrewers there the single time I visited.

Slant tubes with lids would be something I'd be interested in the price of. After a quick look at the link for instructions I realized that is just the simple microbiology I did in college and it would pay off to start a library sooner than later. SWMBO isn't going to be overjoyed at the fridge filling up with tubes but trading slants with other brewers would be cool. Simplest magnetic stirplate I have seen was a computer fan with a small magnet glued to it and put inside a lunchbox. Daiso has strong magnets 8 for 100 yen for the smallest ones. Cost less than 2000 yen to build easily.

The big double burner LP gas stove is only 23000 BTU, although the price is the lowest I have seen for one of that power it still doesn't seem a good deal compared to those Bayou burners the American forces can order from Amazon to an APO address... It doesn't need to be heavy cast iron does it? There is a tutorial on here for a high BTU jet burner and on backyard metal forge enthusiast websites that seems very cheap and safe to build... someday...
 
Unfortunately, I will be going before my classes so I won't be able to stop for drinks... unless they open in the morning :p

FYI, this is what I got at Tokyu Hands today:

677729042.jpg


4x 10ml Screw-cap vials
1x Small test-tube
1x Rubber bung for test-tube
1x Syringe
1x Metal Syringe tip
1x Small plastic funnel (not in photograph)

Cost about 980 yen total. I'm going to stick the sediment in the test-tube with some wort, pour some wort in it, cap it, shake it, and leave it to ferment a little. Once it begins to ferment, I can take some wort out, flame the plastic tip for disinfection, then stab it into the agar and give it 0.1~0.2 ml of wort.
 
Whoa, Devilcraft? In Kanda? Share the details. How do I get there? Another easy way for temp control is take a styrofoam box which are everywhere here and put the heater may in the bottom. Cover the box and you get not only the heat going from the mat but also ambient air gets warm and will stay that way. If the box isn't big enough take two and cut the bottom out of one and just tape it on to the other.
 
I don't want to try shipping stuff from North America due to the shipping costs but while looking at a thread on refractometers I saw someone post an ebay seller in Hong Kong. I took a look at his refractometer store on ebay and the shipping is reasonable to Japan. The prices on the refractometers are ridiculously cheap compared to the ones on Amazon Japan, even with shipping included they are less than half the price! This has me thinking about looking west for supplies instead of east.

Good luck with the slants!

I like the styrofoam idea, someone told me insulation material was hard to get after the big earthquake but they were likely overlooking polystyrene. I can line the inside of a dresser with it, and toss a heating mat at the bottom. Summertime I can figure out cooling, I don't want to have to go with ice packs in there it sounds like too much maintenance.

Cheers!
 
For cooling in summer we have one great thing. The Japanese bath tub. I don't know about your house but we don't use the tub in summer, so you can fill it half way with water then just stand your Carboy in it. Then you can change out the water every couple of days. That should keep everything at a temp around 70 F I bet. That is what I am going to try this summer. If you wanted colder you could change the water everyday.
 
The water coming out of my taps during the summer was 25 C already haha! It would be good for the shoulder of the summer in my house though, I think if I had done that in the beginning of July I wouldn't have had high esters and hot alcohol off flavors.
 
Okay, so I just went to Kanda Sta. and took a look inside Takano Rika Garasu. Warning: Lots of photographs!

2012102914150000.jpg


The shop features an array of lab supplies and equipment. Erlenmeyer flasks range from 600 yen for the small ones to 1600 yen for a 1 Litre one.

2012102914410001.jpg


Unfortunately, I could not find the kinds of vials that look like a test tube with a screw on lid. The closest I could find was 20mm in diameter and 55mm in height (excluding the lid part) and was 630 yen for a pack of 10. There are slightly larger ones as shown in the background of the above photograph but they don't have a screw on lid.

2012102914180000.jpg


They do have a small test tube with 18mm in diameter and 105mm in length, at 84 yen each. Combine that with a silicon bung and it should withstand pressure cooking, although you'd have to sterilize them separately. Rubber bungs (the black ones) are only good up to around 80 degrees celcius, so don't try to put them in boiling water.

2012102914260000.jpg


On the bright side, they have large bottle brushes.

2012102914210000.jpg


And 20L Polyethylene buckets that could act as a primary fermenter.

2012102914410000.jpg


And best of all, polyethylene 20L carboys. 3360 yen. They come with a spigot, but I'd probably change it into a smaller one and then I could simply attack tubing to the spigot for easy racking. The mouth is small enough to be plugged with a rubber bung and an airlock. There is also a wide mouthed version which costs 100 more yen and requires drilling a hole into the lid for attaching an airlock, but its mouth is wide enough to stick your arm inside for better cleaning.

2012102914240000.jpg


They also had hydrometers, polyethylene water tanks, test tube racks, plastic funnels of all sizes, beakers and a stir plate for 10,000 yen.

If you have any questions regarding the shop, I'll try to answer them (if I can remember the info)
 
Wow! Good Find! The shop looks great! Thanks for taking the pictures so we know what to expect! :rockin: The spigot on the carboy looks like a cartoon haha! I notice that the pails are still 3000 yen though:(, I used to get unlimited amounts of free pails from restaurants so I can't bring myself to pay that much for one.
 
Bay Brewing Yokohama was introduced on some late morning programme on TV today, as well as homebrewing. They did a quick show of how they made beer, and it looks like Bay Brewing ferments their beer in converted kegs :)

By the way, got a bunch of beer today :D

2012103019500000.jpg
 
I saw Shinyasan posted a video on facebook of it but I didnt watch since I was busy with my porter yesterday. Ill check it out! Wait, you mean the do secondary in the kegs right? We have both seen their brewery and the fermenters are bigger than kegs even if you discount all the insulation. Maybe there is more to their brewery than I thought, do they have other rooms / floors? He sure manages to put out a variety of brews from there so more vessels makes sense. On another note, are you going to harvest yeast from any of those bottles? Good luck and let me know how it goes!
 
Probably secondary, or maybe the narrator on TV didn't understand the difference between fermentation and bottle(keg) conditioning.

I'd love to make an attempt at harvesting lambic yeasts/bugs from the Cantillon or Boon, but I'm not sure if slants are the best way to harvest those. If I were to harvest them, I'd use a petri-dish agar plate and identify and isolate each type of yeast and bacteria.
 
I try not to trust a online shopping website that doesn't mention company details, that no one has ever mentioned until recently, and is being repeatedly mentioned by a new user with 5 out of his 6 posts recommending it.
 
I knew there were personal interests involved.

There is a section for vendors by the way, instead of advertising your store in every asia-related thread.

Also: What the hell are poo bags?
 
I have been getting my hops shipped from America. Its cheaper than any homebrew shops in Japan. I buy 4# (8 half pounds of different varieties) and it lasts me 6 months. Plus I hook my buddies up. Was ordering from midwest but now using bruhahops.com

I think this is a pretty poor way to advertise and you have lost my respect as a vendor. I have no problem with people promoting their services but what you have done here is boarderline lying. You let us assume you are just another brewer here in Japan and have found a great place. We find out you are the owner or part of bruhahops. Not only that you don't even have your facts correct. Midwest does not ship directly to Japan. So you miss lead us on that as well. I now question whether you have ever even been in Japan. I do not think I will be using your services or recommending you to anyone. I will maintain the relationships I have with vendors that do not mislead from the very beginning and that have shown respect for my business from day one. In my opinion you would do far better just being open and upfront with your intentions and promotions.
 
I have a stout/porter thing going in the primary but I think it's stuck at 1.040ish (OG was 1.065ish). I fear it may be because I did a 60 minute boil and yet forgot to aerate the wort. What to do...

I'm doing krausening with this one and I have a small amount of unfermented wort, I could really aerate that and the active yeast could help it a lot, but I would end up with bottle bombs that way.
 
You can pick up small used freezers for cheap and use them for fermantation with a temp control. As for lab gear, try monotaro.com. They also have copper pipe for chillers, SS pipe fittings. I have also noticed lately that Amazon has expanded what they will ship overseas and usually quite reasonable.
 
Has anyone made a chiller over her yet? How hard was it if someone has? Good idea on the fridge. You could probably find one in the Metropolis.
 
Finally tracked down those vials sold in smaller quantities. Until now I was only able to find ones sold in packs of thousands (since these are intended for research institutions and such)

http://www.toseiyoki.co.jp/material/glass/491

Comes in packs of 100 or 50, and at 100ish apiece.

Amazon has some, too.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=sr_nr...ネジ口試験管&ie=UTF8&qid=1351781122&rnid=2017390051

The name of this kind of product is ネジ口試験管(neji guchi shikenkan).
 
Anyone have any issues with Advanced Brewing? I have been trying to call them for days but no answer. I want to order a few things but had a question. Thinking of getting me some copper tubing they have to make a wort chiller too.
 
I haven't ordered from them, I have heard that he might have had a bit of trouble back in August but lately I have been a bit out of touch with the "offline" homebrewers. Maybe shoot a question into the "Japan Beer Times" forum if you still cant get ahold of him. That forum is manned by people who know the owner of Advanced personally and they might be able to let you know whats up.

Wort (immersion) chillers are easy to make, I recommend making one over buying one every time! However the first thing you should note is the length of any chiller if you buy it, the surface area and the speed which it chills depends on it. Its super easy, go buy a coil of small diameter copper pipe, (I got 10 meters it seems that is standard package size). Once you have the pipe in hand at the hardware store, go to the section where they sell tubing and attachments for garden hoses to faucets. Get enough tubing to run from your faucet to your pot, and another section from the pot to the drain. You will need 2-3 hose clamps to make sure the tubes stay on the copper pipe. Slowly bend the copper pipe into a coil leaving enough on the ends to go up and "gooseneck" over the top of the pot. You want the hoses attached a little distance from the pot and DEFINITELY on the outside of the pot! This prevents accidents, leaking cooling water into wort could contaminate it... Lots of tutorials on this site though, check em out :D

Another note if you are using a chiller for the first time, turn the water on SLOW, full blast through a small diameter hose will likely blow it off the pipe and you will have water get all up in the wort. I flared the ends of mine a bit so the copper hold the hoses a bit tighter. Yes I made that mistake one time ;)
 
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