How do you get all the ingredients in a recipe?

Twice I printed out recipes, which had 6-7 different ingredients, from the web (hefe and porter) and brought them to my LHBS and they didn't carry some of the ingredients. They chopped down the recipe and what I got was DME+one bag of hop+one bag of grain+yeast, instead of two, three different kind of hops, different kind of grains according to the recipes. Even online, I can't seem to order like 0.5 oz of some hops or grains! How do you manage this? Do you buy and stock most of the ingredients and it just a matter of getting them out and measure the amount as a recipe says?
I am still an extracted HB.

I keep a lot of stuff on hand. I generally order nice fresh hops several pounds at a time and grain a couple hundred pounds at a time.

If you're going to keep brewing regularly, there's no reason not to have a lot of your favorite hops around. Remember, you don't have to follow recipes to the letter. You can always substitute different flavor/aroma hops for example.

If you're an extract brewer, having a lot of DME (lightest you can find) is a good thing, because it's the only kind of extract you need.

Cheers

calman said:

I am still an extracted HB.

Click to expand...

this is a funny statement.

is it an issue of them not having the ingredients, not having the ingredients in the size you need, or do they just like to f around with other people's recipes?

if the situation is the 1st one i mentioned, what are you looking for that they don't stock? may be time to find a new HBS....

if it's the 2nd, most people just buy more than they need and use it for the next batch or something...

if it's the 3rd, kick 'em in the balls and find a new HBS.

DME keeps a long time, esp in the freezer. Just make sure you keep it dry.

Pellet hops keep very well in the freezer, especially if you have a food saver or a vac-u-vin container to minimize oxidation.

Whole hops are a little more perishable but still keep pretty well in the freezer if protected from light.

Whole grain keeps forever. Crushed grain not as well, but it'll still keep months if well stored.

If you really don't want to buy any extra ingredients, Austin Homebrew is good about selling fractions of pounds of crushed grains.

Sounds like your LHBS may have a fairly limited selection on hand.

Are you sure that the one bag didn't contain several different kinds of grain? That's how they do it at my LHBS.

If I have a recipe I follow it and if a LHBS doesn't have what I need I go cyber shopping. To me it is like any other recipe, each ingredient is important and if a change is to be made it should be done so with forethought, and not simply because Joe Proprietor has some stock to move. The other approach is to go and see what stock is available at the LHBS and build from there. But I don't like people changing my recipes unless I ask for it.

I'm a distracted HB and i guess we're extremely lucky to have a lbhs. i create a recipe and send it to them via email. they will usually turn it around within a matter of hours since our lbhs here is also a microbrewery/contract brewer so they are usually busy - but usually not too busy not to critique my recipe and give me helpful pointers. which is reassuring from guys who are former home brewers turned pro. usually they crush all the grains into one bag for me. and they adjust the hops weight based on this year's aa for any individual hop.

The freezer part of my kegger is full on partial bags of LME, grain, hops, ginger root, etc. Gets sticky some times.