Hi everyone!
I'm Ash and I'm from Iran. I searched "Iran" in the forum's search out of curiosity and was pleasantly surprised to find out there's been a bunch of people from my neck of the woods here. as you may or may not know Iran is a dry country and making/selling/buying/consuming alcoholic drinks are prohibited and illegal, and because of that, many people make their own beer/wine/liquor etc. for the majority of people this is just out of necessity and they don't consider brewing or distilling a hobby, so in most cases they just want to make something alcoholic as easy and as cheap as possible to get a buzz, which i can't really fault since there's no other option. so when it comes to "brewing beer", in Iran this means you buy bunch of non-alcoholic beer(well, they're basically non-fermented carbonated wort, so you cant's even call them beer) , usually in 1 liter pet bottles, pour them in a bucket or a plastic barrel, add good ole white table sugar, as much as you can get away with for higher ABV, add your baker's yeast and let it ferment in whatever your room temperature is, which is usually much higher than optimum temp for fermentation especially with bread yeast, siphon the "beer" back to the pet bottles they came with, add priming sugar and wait.
on the other hand there are people, including myself, who view it as a hobby and enjoy the process as much as the end result . I personally find the process, the DIY equipment and the science behind brewing more enjoyable than the end result!
I know it's getting too long for an introduction, but i thought you might find these stuff interesting.
I started brewing 10 years ago and began with LME and baker's yeast, then moved to DME and brewer's yeast. my next step was going to be all grain, and i even started DIYing the all grain equipment, bought bunch of stuff from Aliexpress to make a mash tun (which ironically has removed Iran from their list and does not ship to Iran anymore. ironic because China is one of the biggest if not the biggest ally of totalitarian regime of Iran. i digress) but life happened and never got to use or even assemble my stuff.
So long story short, i've got some free time now and i want to give it a go once again. 10 years ago when i started brewing, we as a country had a tough time, both in terms of economics and foreign affairs, unfortunately now it's much much worse and sometimes i just can't fathom how people get by. I'm not saying these things to bring you down, all i'm saying is if i wanna give this a go i have to cut some corners. i remember 10 years ago a buddy of mine who lives in Australia was coming to Iran to visit family, and i asked him if he could buy me some yeast and hops, i remember i bought 15 packets of dry yeast and 500 grams of hops, though i would not call that cheap back then, it was somewhat affordable. nowadays even buying one packet of yeast is a struggle, that is if you can even find someone that has "smuggled" some in. to put things into perspective, minimum wage is 50 cents per hour (yeah, shocking!) and if you were to buy a 5$ packet of yeast you have to pay like 12-13 dollars because they're smuggled. so basically you have to spend payment of 25 hours of work on a packet of yeast! and there's always a chance of getting scammed, because you never get to see these people in person and you have to pay upfront, since brewing equipment are illegal, if they scam you, you can't really report this to "legal system".to be honest if yeast was not reusable and we didn't have local malt (which is below average at best) , brewing was just not possible for us. hops are a different story for another time!
I know this got long and all over the place and i apologize for that. all i'm trying to do here to find ways to bring the cost of brewing as low as possible and that's where i need your help. i'm planning to open new threads and ask my questions there (i've done my research too).
i'd say i'm quite up to date on conventional methods of brewing and processes that go into it, i think i'm more looking for unconventional workarounds considering my situation .
Cheers
I'm Ash and I'm from Iran. I searched "Iran" in the forum's search out of curiosity and was pleasantly surprised to find out there's been a bunch of people from my neck of the woods here. as you may or may not know Iran is a dry country and making/selling/buying/consuming alcoholic drinks are prohibited and illegal, and because of that, many people make their own beer/wine/liquor etc. for the majority of people this is just out of necessity and they don't consider brewing or distilling a hobby, so in most cases they just want to make something alcoholic as easy and as cheap as possible to get a buzz, which i can't really fault since there's no other option. so when it comes to "brewing beer", in Iran this means you buy bunch of non-alcoholic beer(well, they're basically non-fermented carbonated wort, so you cant's even call them beer) , usually in 1 liter pet bottles, pour them in a bucket or a plastic barrel, add good ole white table sugar, as much as you can get away with for higher ABV, add your baker's yeast and let it ferment in whatever your room temperature is, which is usually much higher than optimum temp for fermentation especially with bread yeast, siphon the "beer" back to the pet bottles they came with, add priming sugar and wait.
on the other hand there are people, including myself, who view it as a hobby and enjoy the process as much as the end result . I personally find the process, the DIY equipment and the science behind brewing more enjoyable than the end result!
I know it's getting too long for an introduction, but i thought you might find these stuff interesting.
I started brewing 10 years ago and began with LME and baker's yeast, then moved to DME and brewer's yeast. my next step was going to be all grain, and i even started DIYing the all grain equipment, bought bunch of stuff from Aliexpress to make a mash tun (which ironically has removed Iran from their list and does not ship to Iran anymore. ironic because China is one of the biggest if not the biggest ally of totalitarian regime of Iran. i digress) but life happened and never got to use or even assemble my stuff.
So long story short, i've got some free time now and i want to give it a go once again. 10 years ago when i started brewing, we as a country had a tough time, both in terms of economics and foreign affairs, unfortunately now it's much much worse and sometimes i just can't fathom how people get by. I'm not saying these things to bring you down, all i'm saying is if i wanna give this a go i have to cut some corners. i remember 10 years ago a buddy of mine who lives in Australia was coming to Iran to visit family, and i asked him if he could buy me some yeast and hops, i remember i bought 15 packets of dry yeast and 500 grams of hops, though i would not call that cheap back then, it was somewhat affordable. nowadays even buying one packet of yeast is a struggle, that is if you can even find someone that has "smuggled" some in. to put things into perspective, minimum wage is 50 cents per hour (yeah, shocking!) and if you were to buy a 5$ packet of yeast you have to pay like 12-13 dollars because they're smuggled. so basically you have to spend payment of 25 hours of work on a packet of yeast! and there's always a chance of getting scammed, because you never get to see these people in person and you have to pay upfront, since brewing equipment are illegal, if they scam you, you can't really report this to "legal system".to be honest if yeast was not reusable and we didn't have local malt (which is below average at best) , brewing was just not possible for us. hops are a different story for another time!
I know this got long and all over the place and i apologize for that. all i'm trying to do here to find ways to bring the cost of brewing as low as possible and that's where i need your help. i'm planning to open new threads and ask my questions there (i've done my research too).
i'd say i'm quite up to date on conventional methods of brewing and processes that go into it, i think i'm more looking for unconventional workarounds considering my situation .
Cheers
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