Brewing abroad (China specifically)

[jm21]

Hi folks.

I am from the PNW originally and have been working in China for about a year now and plan to stay here awhile. I recently had a very nice pale ale from Slow Boat brewing in Beijing and it really got me hankering for an IPA (the restaurant was sold out of one IPA and the other was more a UK style one).

The price for a case is up to $80 for a double IPA though and I'm a bit of a cheapskate. Got me thinking I could probably do it cheaper myself. So for the last couple days I've been looking up what is the rudimentary equipment needed and how much ingredients cost to see if it's really cost effective. Tsingtao beer is dirt cheap and I actually like it, but I've been drinking it for a year and crave some variety now and then. I like very hoppy beers, the hoppier the better usually.

So, the cheapest IPA I can find is Brew Dog Punk IPA (never had it) for about $4 USD (will convert all the prices to USD) over the internet and $1 for shipping (if you order a lot, they'll waive the shipping).

I've also thought it might be a business opportunity for my girlfriend potentially. We are thinking about getting married in a year or two and she normally only earns about $400-500 per month working 70 hours a week with no vacation time. There are two American and one Bavarian breweries in Beijing and the demand seems to be growing. That's pretty far out there though.

Example prices (please ask if I miss something)

Equipment:
A 5 gallon pot is about $8-9. The biggest pot I have is about 2.5gal.
Brewing bucket is about $10
There's a 5 gallon stainless tank here that's used as a hot water dispenser at schools and factories that might be good as a mash tun for about $10
Bottles and caps: can re-use tsingtao bottles basically for free with the metal cork dealy-bobs
Thermometer about $3
5 gallon water bottle: maybe $3 with water inside (save some money there)
Grain mill: maybe $13, but there might be a cheaper traditional one


purpose-built brewing equipment is relatively expensive here.

I think I would do whole grain rather than extract because I'd like to try using Chinese ingredients (more on that later).

Australian 2 row malted barley (cheaper than American): about $13 for 22 pounds shipped.
American hops: around $24-27 for a pound shipped
Yeast: about $3-4 for a packet

Chinese products (China does make a ton of beer, but all lagers):

The problem I am having with Chinese products is there is really not a home brewing scene amongst normal Chinese. The rich Chinese want to use western products. So you usually see hops sold as medicine and malted barley sold for making barley tea. This means there is very little information about things like alpha acid levels which is important for IPAs.

1lbs of Chinese hops: about $2.50 shipped

Chinese malted barley you might be able to get a bit cheaper depending on how well you're able to negotiate the shipping. I can't imagine it being less than $6 for 22lbs shipped. I am guessing the good stuff is pretty similar in price to Australian.

Questions:

Is it worth it to try a couple 2.5gal or so batches first? Or is waiting 3 weeks for a case of beer discouraging?

What are the chances of Chinese hops being suitable to make an IPA, not knowing the AA levels? If the AA levels are say, on the low end of the American hop spectrum, could you add more? or would that ruin the flavor in some other way?

Most IPA recipes seem to require about half a pound of hops, does that sound about right?

Do I need any sort of special equiment to maintain the temperature while it's fermenting? My apartment probably ranges from 60-80 depending on where your standing and what time of day it is. Outside it is pretty darn cold (canals are frozen in the afternoon). Almost no humidity. What kind of range of temperatures is tolerated? There are some containers for making vinegar they sell here that maintain a specific temp but I'd rather not buy one if I can avoid it.

It's very cold outside this time of year here: is an inside ice bath better, or just put it outside, or both?

Thanks for any help you can give. Sorry if there's a few spelling errors. I finished this post right as I needed to do something else.

 

[billl]

1) Sure. 2.5 gallon batches are great - so are 1 gallon batches - especially for working out new recipes or procedures. However, don't get a 5 gallon pot. That is obviously too small to do a 5 gallon batch. You'll want at 10 gallon pot for a full batch.

2) Not sure what hops they use in china. If you get get australian 2 row, you should be able to get australian and/or new zealand hops though, right? Lots of those varieties make great IPAs.

3) Crazy hopheads (like me) usually use at least 8 oz. Your tastes may vary.

4) You need some way to control temps around 65F. (exact temps vary by yeast strain) Search "swamp cooler" here for some cheapo ideas.

5) Ice water cools WAAAAAY faster than cold air. Think about jumping into an icy lake vs walking out into 32 degree air.

 

[jm21]

nfortunately this got double posted. Maybe some sort of mod review for the first post? There were some interesting answers in the other post of almost the same name.

There don't seem to be any Australian or New Zealand hops for whatever reason. Not famous enough?

 

[FatDragon]

If you're serious about having good beer around, start off with a couple batches using the tried and true ingredients that most homebrewers in China use, and no, they're not all rich: the most prolific homebrewer I know in Wuhan works the night shift for the Wuhan metro system and still lives with his parents (why do you think he needs to drink so much?), and he's using the same ingredients as the rest of us. The Aussie malt isn't as fancy as it sounds, though - it's Australian feed barley imported and then malted by a Chinese malting company in the southeast.

If you want to use Chinese stuff, brewing wheat malt in China is almost exclusively Chinese, and there are shops selling malted Chinese 2-row barley as an alternative to the Australian stuff. You could get brewing-specific Qingdao Hua hops for aboug $7.50/jin from Manpin Pijiu. Angel yeast has spec sheets for brewing yeast, but I've never been able to find out if they actually produce any.

But really, my strong recommendation is to do a few batches with regular beer ingredients before you start experimenting with sketchy stuff. That way you can dial in a basic process for making good beer so you know that the results of the locally-sourced beer are based on sound brewing practices and it's not just bad because you screwed it up.

 

[jm21]

Looks like the other thread got deleted a few hours ago.

I was thinking along the same lines. The Australian stuff is not much more and if people are using it it must work OK. Use the Qingdao hops. Tried and true for the first time. Maybe make one wort and try fermenting it with the same type and amount of hops but two different yeasts (brewer's and Chinese) in two different carboys to see if there's a difference. I had read a bunch of posts from a distiller's forum that yeasts were basically the same organism but with different additives, so the main thing was getting a pure yeast with no additives. But maybe brewer's yeast is different. I know with bread baking if you use a sourdough starter the flavor is supposed to be slightly different depending on where you live as the wild yeasts are different, but I don't know why. More research.

There seem to be some Saaz hops grown in Xinjiang but the AA levels are too low for what I want. I think the Qingdao hops would be OK. I checked out the IBU calculator using measurements from a couple IPA recipes I found and i was coming up with 90 IBUs or so with Qingdao hops.

I wonder about using the medicinal japonicus hops for dry hopping. It seems like they might work for that. I might order some just to see how they smell compared to beer brewing hops.

Random questions:

When you're cooling things off, why not add ice directly to the wort?

Is it a bad thing to have too much headspace during fermentation?

Thanks for all the help everyone. It is really appreciated.