Home brewing in Japan

Blue-Frog said:

Hi Scott.

Some day we may want to revisit the "night at the museum" affair which never materialized?!!

I did some housework last night putting away some yeasts and wanted to see what you had up on your site before about propagating kveik yeast... I am sure you had something, maybe it was a DME or DME/Nutrient mixture (can't remember exactly) anyhow, when I went to check I couldn't find anything... what was it? Could you remind me of what it was and how you suggested to use it?

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I had some small packets of DME for Kviek starters (no nutrient, although now that I think about, if I add a pinch, that would be a good product!) This was the product blurb (now out of stock) "30g of DME added to 200ml of water will give you a 1.050 starter for your dried Kveik yeast." I'll getting my Kviek production underway this week. I have 8 5l fermenters coming in and also a dehydrator, so I'll be getting those us and going soon.

I see. Thanks. I too am getting a dehydrator soon.... have you decided on which one yet?

This one just arrived. https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B07GXBHB54/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Lowest setting is 35c, so that should be just about right I think. Making wax paper trays will be a bit of a challenge, but should work out. I'll keep you posted on how it works out. I have some Ebbegarden ready to dry out tomorrow.

Good. I want to know about the one you got... I am actually looking at some others but can't tell if

• 1) They have a fan system that pushes the warm air through or if they work on natural convection.
• 2) They have a built in timer.

This one has a fan, but no timer. I put it on the lowest setting and the yeast was dried in 8 hours. Pretty straight forward. I like that the center cut out in the tray is not raised very high; that allows me to keep using wax paper "trays" easily for yeast drying. I've done two batches and I think it's good for this purpose.

Trying to follow what you said about the center cut out; (how might the height affect things?) Is the tray base actually a slope? if so, maybe I do understand....

The site doesn't have a picture, but the center of the tray has like a 4-5 cm round hole for air flow and that hole has a ring around it, slightly higher than the plane of the actual tray. Other models I looked at had a much higher ring in the center, which would have made dryer yeast a bit harder, I thought. I'll try to get a pic later.

Just a quick FIY.
If you buy your base malt from Asahi they are not selling to the public any more. I tried to order the other day and couldn't get base malt

Funkychef said:

I tried to order the other day and couldn't get base malt

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i didn't follow the thread, but that's the exact reason i learned to malt.......

Have you tried Ohnishi? I get 25kg sacks from them, but I have to order my fax or email. No website. For specialty grains, I use Brewland.

Yeah I sent them (ohnishi) an email a couple of days ago and haven't heard back from them. Fingers crossed I can get it from them

Might have to do it the old-fashioned way. We started with a phone call (my wife did the talking), then faxed our first few orders. After that, they said email was fine. Fortunately, we live close enough that we can pick it up at the warehouse.

Ok sounds good. Where is the warehouse?
I might give them a call on Monday.
What did you tell them?
Did they ask if you were home brewing?

Funkychef said:

Ok sounds good. Where is the warehouse?
I might give them a call on Monday.
What did you tell them?
Did they ask if you were home brewing?

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Mind if I just PM you?

Sure can!

Funkychef, thanks for the heads-up.
ebbelwoi, I need to stock up also... and it has been a a quite while since I successfully orded from oni.
Can I PM you and get brought up to date on protocol too?

Blue-Frog said:

Funkychef, thanks for the heads-up.
ebbelwoi, I need to stock up also... and it has been a a quite while since I successfully orded from oni.
Can I PM you and get brought up to date on protocol too?

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もちろん！

ebbelwoi said:

もちろん！

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There's not much information on homebrewing in Japan and I found this thread!
I want to buy from Onishi too.
Can you give me some information?

mkymd said:

There's not much information on homebrewing in Japan and I found this thread!
I want to buy from Onishi too.
Can you give me some information?

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The last guy wasn't able to order from Ohnishi without a brewing license. I'd recommend the Malt Shop or Brewland for ingredients. If you have any questions, let me know, and I'll try to help.

ebbelwoi said:

The last guy wasn't able to order from Ohnishi without a brewing license. I'd recommend the Malt Shop or Brewland for ingredients. If you have any questions, let me know, and I'll try to help.

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Thanks for the reply.
I'm going to buy it in the Malt Shop.

Hi All, I just decided to start all-grain brewing in Japan too. I've managed to get everything I need to start but i've been trying to figure out what other people use for burners.

Right now i'm making a small 15L batch on a 1400W IH burner and it's unbelievably slow. I've been trying to figure out how to get a simple propane burner like I'm used to in the states but that looks amazingly complex and easy to get wrong.

What have others found useful? Are there good IH burners that people like? My hope is to just get something that works well for up to 24L batches.

I just use my kitchen stovetop. I can do 15L batches in a 33cm kettle with no problems.

That's a great confirmation to get. Turns out I was just using my IH stovetop incorrectly. My kettle is a bit massive on it but it heats up pretty well.

Hey all, I'm gearing up to start all-grain brewing again in Vancouver after a shitty year of divorce and moving from Yokohama (a city I love), and an infected batch (of people with covid19). Now that my gear is starting to take shape here and I have reached out to the local community, I was asked if I wouldn't mind doing a presentation on brewing in Japan for the local Vancouver BC homebrewers. Its been a very long time since I browsed this thread but I am happy to see that some people are still getting some use of it. With that in mind, if anyone feels like responding to this message or with a PM, I am interested to hear what you feel is the current state of homebrewing in Japan (with your local situation and in a broader sense), and how you feel it has changed in the last several years. I know that from my arrival in Japan in 2012 until 2020 I felt that access to ingredients and other homebrewer support has vastly improved, and that it feels like a tipping point is almost within reach where the laws may be amended to legalize the hobby. I'd love to hear your thoughts!