Overseas Brewing Problems

Hello everyone from steamy Hong Kong. I'm trying to get into the brewing hobby but I'm having some trouble getting my hands on yeast. I found a great lemon tea beer recipe but when I tried using baker's yeast it didn't turn out so alcoholic (though it had a delicious wheaty flavor, haha) I've found some things that say "Brewer's Yeast" in grocery stores but the packaging specifically says that those products are not to be confused with brewer's TYPE yeast, so I haven't tried any of those yet. It looks like I could import some yeast from China rather cheaply, but with all the food quality problems there I'm reluctant to do so. What's my best option? Import all the way from the States or Australia? I read some where that it may be possible to use the yeast from an unfiltered beer to get a batch going. Is that true? Do you think that yeast would have survived the trip all the way to HK? Anyone in Hong Kong have any advice? Thanks!

yes, yeast can be cultured from bottle conditioned commericial beer. Search for yeast starters and/or yeast culturing and that should get you started. If not just ordered some packages of dry yeast.

Hi
Greetings from Shenzhen
I have been importing from Singapore - ibrew.
There are no HB shops in HK
It's also possible to get stuff of the chinese website Taobao.
Happy brewin

@pintofplain Thanks for your advice, I've been searching Taobao and found some suppliers, but like I said I'm a little reluctant to any of them. I'll check out ibrew but if you know any shops on taobao that'd be great

@bradleybrew thanks, was able to get some going. might not of made the starter right though, we shall see if this actually ferments

You might try looking for Jiuqu ( 酒曲/酒&#40628 It might be easier to find in HK than western artisanal yeasts. I've used the Korean version call nuruk for brewing rice wine and it worked great. It would be a cool experiment to try making beer with it.

Also, you could look into harvesting yeast from a good imported beer, just look for cloudy wisps/debris in the bottom of the bottle.

Are you able to find hops in HK?

alexandermuir said:

@pintofplain Thanks for your advice, I've been searching Taobao and found some suppliers, but like I said I'm a little reluctant to any of them. I'll check out ibrew but if you know any shops on taobao that'd be great

@bradleybrew thanks, was able to get some going. might not of made the starter right though, we shall see if this actually ferments

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Hi. The feedback I have from nano brewers in china is: yeast they import directly (dried) from the US or other western Internet suppliers. Malt and hops are available in china through local and western (german) suppliers, but not in home brew quantities, at least, not in small home brew. Minimum order usually 100kg of malt and 5kg of hops.

Check out these dudes:http://www.thebeernecessities.hk/eng/