Home brewing in Japan

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Haha, yeah. Not exactly sure what it is, but the recipe I tweaked was a Porter so I'll just stick with that
 
ShizuokaBrad said:
Anyone get up to any brewing this long weekend? I finally got around to my first batch in about 1.5 years. My technique was pretty rusty but pretty happy with the results so far. My IPA is bubbling away now...

I hoping to get a pipeline going soon so will be brewing up some smaller batches over the next couple of weeks. It's good to be back ;)
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I had a Thanksgiving party on Saturday. About 30 guests. They managed to kill my keg of dark mild (down to about 1/4 at the start), honey kolsch (1/3 full at the start of the party, getting a little old), a full keg of black wet hopped IPA (bummed about this, only got to have a few pints myself), a 10L polypin of English IPA, and almost an entire keg of pumpkin ale. My keezer hasnt been this empty since the day after St. Patrick's Day. SO I had to get brewing after cleaning up. Made an American Pale Ale that I plan on adding 60-90g of coffee to in secondary, and am lined up to brew another dark mild tomorrow and a Russian Imperial Stout on the APA cake the first weekend of Dec.
 
Anyone had any experience ordering from www.aliexpress.com and having things shipped to Japan? I'm looking to get a new grain mill and they seem reasonable. Under $100 for stainless steel two rollers shipped.
 
ShizuokaBrad said:
Anyone had any experience ordering from www.aliexpress.com and having things shipped to Japan? I'm looking to get a new grain mill and they seem reasonable. Under $100 for stainless steel two rollers shipped.
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Yep. I've ordered keg lids and other parts. SS out of China tends to be a little less finished off than what I am used to, but the stuff has been serviceable. You should be okay. Have you used Ali before?
 
I haven't used it before but I've been warned that it takes forever to ship. I'm going to go ahead and make an order now... guess I'll just have to stick with a corona mill until the new one arrives.

Getting ready to dry hop my IPA tomorrow. Good times! Looking forward to having some homebrew on hand after such a long break!
 
Fellow Japan brewers,
I have a Strong Belgian Ale in primary and have some really fragrant apricot blossoms starting to bud in my yard. Was thinking of dropping 2-3 ounces in secondary just for aromatic purposes. Have any of you tried or had success/failure with such an idea. Any feedback is appreciated.

Happy New Year!
12oz
 
Interesting idea. I'd be worried about infection but maybe there'd be enough alcohol...? Let us know how it goes!
Happy new year!
 
12ozrebel said:
Fellow Japan brewers,
I have a Strong Belgian Ale in primary and have some really fragrant apricot blossoms starting to bud in my yard. Was thinking of dropping 2-3 ounces in secondary just for aromatic purposes. Have any of you tried or had success/failure with such an idea. Any feedback is appreciated.

Happy New Year!
12oz
Click to expand...

I was gonna do sakura last year but I heard some pretty non-positive things. Mostly that with the amount of wild yeast on the blossoms, you'd more than likely end up infecting the batch and if you say heat pasteurize or make a tea, you'll end up with a barfy/vegetal soup. The best solution I had seen was to extract the aromatics into cheap activated charcoal and then use that. I think that was on this thread last year?
 
12ozrebel said:
Fellow Japan brewers,
I have a Strong Belgian Ale in primary and have some really fragrant apricot blossoms starting to bud in my yard. Was thinking of dropping 2-3 ounces in secondary just for aromatic purposes. Have any of you tried or had success/failure with such an idea. Any feedback is appreciated.

Happy New Year!
12oz
Click to expand...

Is it too late now?
I just thought of this... if you are concerned with the contamination issue mentioned by sabotenfighter, you could try using a homemade Randal;
i.e Dry Flower it, by pouring the beer thru the flowers... just before drinking.
 
Hey Fellow Japanese Homebrewers. Can you help me out? I want to gather some information on your brewing and purchasing habits. Please take a moment to do this survey. And please pass the link on to any other homebrewer you know. The survey is in Japanese and English. http://goo.gl/forms/CdTXCAv1Pe
こんばんは。アンケートにご協力いただけないでしょうか？
ブルーイングについての情報を集めています。すぐに終わると思いますのでほんの少しお時間を取っていただけますとありがたいです。
また、このアンケートをお知り合いのホームブルワーに回していただけますでしょうか。
このアンケートは日本語と英語です。
 
I see you are following up on something you said earlier. That’s a lot of questions! Good marketing research skills!
humm, I wish the data collected could be seen by contributors as it is accumulated and evolves into a solid image of who we are and what we do.

Unless you are looking for a qualitative response rather than a quantitative one,
I think there is a slight error of omission in the English version of Q2:


How is your usual batch size (in liters)?　1度に作るビールの量はどれくらいですか？

(Well, when it's in liters it's just fine, but when it's on the street, it's not.) ;)
 
Bluefrog,
Thanks for the response. I'll probably put up the results in a week or two, after most of the responding community finishes. I'm hoping to get us a good variety of hops at competitive prices and some different dry yeast varieties as well, not to mention liquid yeast! Finally!
 
Is it too late now?
I just thought of this... if you are concerned with the contamination issue mentioned by sabotenfighter, you could try using a homemade Randal;
i.e Dry Flower it, by pouring the beer thru the flowers... just before drinking.

I picked one cup worth of blossoms and made a tea out it and cooled it down then added it to secondary, we'll see how it turns out.
I'll update soon.
 
Interested to hear how this beer turns out.

Also, tekton, excited to have another shop around, especially if you'll have liquid yeast and different types of hops on hand. :rockin:
 
sabotenfighter said:
Interested to hear how this beer turns out.

Also, tekton, excited to have another shop around, especially if you'll have liquid yeast and different types of hops on hand. :rockin:
Click to expand...

Than for the encouragement. At first, it sounds so simple. Buy a bunch of hops, yeast, and grain, and put up a web site. Haha. There's a ton of behind the curtain stuff that needs to be addressed before-hand. Not un-manageable, but certainly more details than I first imagined. I'll keep you posted.

BTW, anyone entering the Wan Cup this year?
 
I'm thinking about entering. Hopefully I'll have enough time to get everything ready. The entry period is coming soon, isn't it...

Tekton, thanks for putting this together. If you need any help, let me know. I have a little experience running online stores (specifically marketing and branding).
 
ShizuokaBrad said:
I'm thinking about entering. Hopefully I'll have enough time to get everything ready. The entry period is coming soon, isn't it...

Tekton, thanks for putting this together. If you need any help, let me know. I have a little experience running online stores (specifically marketing and branding).
Click to expand...

Here's the info. If you need a link, PM me.

Entry period (via website): 2016/2/7 (Sunday) - 2/19 (Friday)
Submission of beers: 2016/2/7 (Sunday) - 2/21 (Sunday)
Judging: early March 2016
Announcement of names (only) of winners: early March 2016
Award ceremony (and party): mid-March 2016
Scope of entries: beers made on domestic homebrew equipment
(beers made on BOP or professional equipment are excluded).
Beer styles: in accordance with 2008 BJCP STYLE GUIDELINES
(2008 Revision of the 2004 Guidelines) (however, mead
and cider are excluded).
Entry fee: Y1,000 (first entered beer), Y500 (second and
subsequent entered beers, per entry)

I plan on sending a cream ale, berry wheat, stout, and maybe a common if it clears up. None are really my best efforts, but I'd love some feedback.

The berry wheat came up nicely though, I put about a half a kilo of Costco mixed berry in there after fermentation slowed down. Kegged it a week later. Nice pink color and jsut right aroma with a slight tartness. We'll see.
 
Thanks for that.

I was checking the website but haven't been able to find the entry procedures. Guess we'll have to wait.

I was thinking of sending in a stout, coffee stout and IPA. I wanted to send in a smoked porter I made but it's still conditioning and seems like it's going to need more time (that or it's just not very good!). I took a year and a half off brewing when my daughter was born so kind of feeling like these could have all been done better as well. I had a benkyokai with a homebrewer who has won multiple awards at WanCup but at the time I didn't have anything to share with him because I was just getting back into brewing. Hopefully I'll have a chance to meet up with him again before the entry period to get some feedback and advice.
 
Humm, odd question perhaps, but is there a category for non-alcoholic beers?
(The closest thing I see is speciality beers)

If there is a dedicated category that I missed,
I might be able to use a link to the contest ;)
 
What is the typical approx. Japanesse/Foreigner (xpats whatever) ratio?
Is the winners party (mentioned above)... attendable even if not compeating?

How many entries / winners are typical?
(2006: 「19名の方々から48のエントリービールがあり、これを5カテゴリーに分けて審査した結果下記のように入賞者が決定いたしました。」)
Is it still about the same today?

thanks

bf
 
Hello
Sanshinboi here, I live in Osaka and have been brewing about one year and a half. I am moving up to all grain. I will be boiling my wort and doing everything outside. I have a big cast iron burner (chutetsu Konro)
I plan to boil 6 to 7 gallons. Can anyone tell me approximately how big of a propane tank I should rent. Any any tips on how to rent propane.
Or for that matter any other tips on all grain. I am planning to do a Irish Red.
Thanks
Sanshinboi
 
Sanshinboi said:
Hello
Sanshinboi here, I live in Osaka and have been brewing about one year and a half. I am moving up to all grain. I will be boiling my wort and doing everything outside. I have a big cast iron burner (chutetsu Konro)
I plan to boil 6 to 7 gallons. Can anyone tell me approximately how big of a propane tank I should rent. Any any tips on how to rent propane.
Or for that matter any other tips on all grain. I am planning to do a Irish Red.
Thanks
Sanshinboi
Click to expand...

Sanshin? Shouldn't you be in Okinawa?

I haven't brewed on propane in a long time (I'm all electric). But I'm pretty sure that if (big if) you can find someplace to sell you propane, you'll only be able to get the smallest bottle. The gas law changed a few years ago making it very difficult to get and manage bottles yourself (because a number of people have managed to blown their places up:)). Few companies handle refillable tanks and often will insist to come to your place to "install" it. Good luck.
 
I pretty much had the experience that tekton described. Our house is on propane gas and I was able to talk the gas guy into bringing us a smaller 5L tank to hook up to our bbq. It's similar to the way that they do the CO2 tanks here in that you basically rent the tank and then get it refilled by the company. I think the tank was something like 10,000¥ the first time and then 3000¥ refills. I suppose you could get a gas company to bring you a tank if you tell them it's for a bbq and then just hook it up to your chutestsu konro. They did insist on setting it up themselves and I basically can't touch the tank because they refill it when they change my house tanks over.
 
ShizuokaBrad and Tektonjp,
Thanks for the info. As usual lots of hurdles to jump through to get anything done in this country. Telethon, did you have any trouble bring 5 gallons up to boil with the propane. My kronor is pretty big but when I convert the Japanese units of measurement to btu's it small compared to burners in the USA.
 
I have no problem at all with bringing 28L to boil on my propane gas range in the kitchen. If I'm doing BIAB is takes 15 mins for full boil. If I've used my mash tun then it takes about 25-30 mins to reach a full boil.
 
Sanshinboi said:
ShizuokaBrad and Tektonjp,
Thanks for the info. As usual lots of hurdles to jump through to get anything done in this country. Telethon, did you have any trouble bring 5 gallons up to boil with the propane. My kronor is pretty big but when I convert the Japanese units of measurement to btu's it small compared to burners in the USA.
Click to expand...

Do you know the heat (kW?) output of your burner? I just checked the burner I used back when and it's rated 3.5 kW and that was enough, though slow to ramp up. If I recall, I used an heat stick to help it reach boil quicker.
 
Thanks ShizuokaBrad, that sounds encouraging now if I can only rent a
Propane tank. If not I'll go to some other plan.
 
Do you know the heat (kW?) output of your burner? I just checked the burner I used back when and it's rated 3.5 kW and that was enough, though slow to ramp up. If I recall, I used an heat stick to help it reach boil quicker.[/QUOTE]

Hello Tektonjp
Yes the output is 7.6 kW so it looks like I can to it. Might invest in a heat stick too, where did you buy it? Of course it all depends on getting propane or I'm back to square one, Really appreciate the help.
Thanks
 
Trying to decide what I want to send in for the WanCup...
Got a decent IPA on tap, but it was better the first time I brewed it, got a oatmeal stout that has been getting a lot of praise from local geeks and will have a hopstanded W-IPA and a dry Irish stout fermenting now.
 
Sanshinboi said:
Hello
Sanshinboi here, I live in Osaka and have been brewing about one year and a half. I am moving up to all grain. I will be boiling my wort and doing everything outside. I have a big cast iron burner (chutetsu Konro)
I plan to boil 6 to 7 gallons. Can anyone tell me approximately how big of a propane tank I should rent. Any any tips on how to rent propane.
Or for that matter any other tips on all grain. I am planning to do a Irish Red.
Thanks
Sanshinboi
Click to expand...

Hi

Another possibility is to ask the gas company to set up a snap fitting outside. They are usually pretty reasonable.

Cheers Gary
 
sabotenfighter said:
Trying to decide what I want to send in for the WanCup...
Got a decent IPA on tap, but it was better the first time I brewed it, got a oatmeal stout that has been getting a lot of praise from local geeks and will have a hopstanded W-IPA and a dry Irish stout fermenting now.
Click to expand...

Hello sabotenfigther.
I take it the Wancup is a home brew contest? Is is all grain or extract Brewers too. I got a Amarillo Pale Ale I'd like to enter if extract brewers are eligible.
 
Sanshinboi said:
Hello sabotenfigther.
I take it the Wancup is a home brew contest? Is is all grain or extract Brewers too. I got a Amarillo Pale Ale I'd like to enter if extract brewers are eligible.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter where your malt comes from! Plenty of guys have won medals on extract brews. Enter it and get some feedback! cheers
 
Hi. I'm happy to have found this thread. I wasn't sure how active the Japan home brewing community would be given the local rules on brewing...

I've just done my first brew day and my brown ale is 2 days into its fermentation cycle. I'm already dreaming of giving up my salaryman life and becoming the next Baird/Brimmer/etc.

I can see I've got a lot of background reading to catch up on, and will save any questions I have for after I've worked my way through the 900 odd posts.

For now, I just wanted to say yoroshiku!
 

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