Homebrewers in China

[FatDragon]

You might be able to try a pseudo no-chill where you rest/stir/ice bath the wort down to about 70C and then fill the container. 70C is still hot enough to pasteurize, but it would definitely leach less from your plastic in the event that your food-grade, heat-resistant container doesn't quite live up to its name.

Not using AC and heaters is pretty standard here. It's hard to understand why someone would drop 3.5k on an AC/heating unit and not use it in extreme heat and cold, but so it goes.

 

[Ke_Liren]

Not using AC and heaters is pretty standard here. It's hard to understand why someone would drop 3.5k on an AC/heating unit and not use it in extreme heat and cold, but so it goes.

Par for the course! A lot of my Chinese friends have those fancy free standing heaters/AC units, but I've never seen any of them on. Pretty sure it has to do with 面子 more than temperature as many of those people also have a full-sized western oven that they've never turned on.

 

[FatDragon]

You sure they're ovens? Full-size ovens are rare here. UV disinfecting cabinets that look like ovens, on the other hand, are pretty common.

That said, I've definitely got acquaintances with the built-in, never-used, full-size oven. Mostly rich folks who have way too much money and no idea what to do with it. There are a lot of people like that here these days. The land of opportunity is also the land of nouveau riche.

 

[Ke_Liren]

Definitely ovens. Have a disinfecting cabinet in my apartment, actually. Waste of space for me - the last tenants didn't clean it well and it's impossible to clean under the grates, so it's been empty since move in day, and will stay empty till move out day. Most of the oven owners try to get me to come over and show them how to use the oven. So far only one has used it (once) to make egg tarts. The others use it to store dishes.

In Wuhan, too, eh? If you throw a coin out of any window in Hangzhou, you'll almost surely hit a 土豪. I've never seen so many Teslas, Mercedes and BMWs in my life, and almost all driven by kids my age. I also know about a dozen 25 year olds who own two or three homes in a city where the apartments easily go for 50k/sq m. It's pretty annoying for us renters as they're driving the rental costs through the roof. Hangzhou government recently banned 2nd homes for 外地人 and the 高铁 from Shanghai to Hangzhou was totally booked - 6,000 homes sold the evening after they announcement (announcement was to take effect the next morning). A lot of my girlfriend's coworkers keep the 2nd/3rd houses empty for investment (no property taxes), so there's almost none on the market for renters. All the restaurants and such are closing, too. Uuuurgh! If rents were cheaper, I could have more space and buy a 2nd fermenting bucket! Time to move to Yunnan or Guizhou

 

[FatDragon]

The reason the housing bubble is probably never going to burst here is because real estate is the only safe investment in this country. From the time my wife and I decided to buy an apartment to the time we managed to put in a down payment on one, the market shot up 50%. Mind you, we were trying to buy the whole time (about ten months), but most new developments were doing lotteries with 5-10 prospective buyers for every apartment going up for sale, and pre-owned apartments were selling well over market value because 'market value' was increasing so rapidly. It slowed down around the time we finally got our foot in the door with a new development, but in the eight months since we bought the apartment (which hadn't broken ground at the time and won't actually be handed over to us until March 2019) it's already worth about 10% more than we paid.

If I had bought when I moved here, I'd be up something like 6-8x the investment. Even at those prices, home ownership was out of reach of many common people and we had just learned the lesson of the 2007 recession back home, so I thought even those prices constituted a bubble. If missed opportunities were worth mourning, I'd cry myself to sleep every night between Wuhan real estate and first hearing about Bitcoin when it was just a few months old.

 

[Ke_Liren]

Indeed! Though they're really trying to put the stop on the market here - G20 made a lot of people very rich, but the government is trying just about every trick in the book to pull the prices down. Limits on waidi ren, limits on 3rd homes for bendi hukou, now they're talking about a property tax etc. Doesn't seem to be doing much to slow down the market. This has spawned a saying among some of the language students here: "If you can learn the vocabulary and grammar to talk about real estate and marriage, you can handle 98% of Chinese conversations."

Back to beer, do you just buy your yeasts off Taobao? I already got mine for this batch, but I'm seeing mostly Mangrove Jack or Safale 05 on the stores while browsing, and the thread on Mangrove Jack doesn't seem to endorse much more than a few kinds of it (the wit and Belgian). I also seem to recall reading you saying somewhere (in this thread or another - I've been obsessively reading the forums for a week so forget where I saw it) that liquid yeasts are hard/impossible to find.

 

[FatDragon]

Fermentis/Safale, Danstar/Lallemand, and Mangrove Jack's yeasts are all pretty readily available here, and they're all solid brands. Liquid yeast is not worth pursuing here yet. Last I checked, there was one taobao shop selling a few strains, but they were pretty much all redundant with dry strains that you can buy here already. Other than that, I believe there's still a foreign-owned LHBS in Shanghai that sells some liquid strains, but we're talking north of 200 kuai per vial. Best not to bother even thinking about liquid yeast for the first year or two at least.

 

[Ke_Liren]

Haha, got it. Brewed last weekend - looking forward to see how it turns out. Lots of things went wrong, but we'll see! The aquarium pump didn't work, so would not suggest it for future brewers Other hand pump that came with the bucket worked pretty well, but I'm worried about whether it was totally sanitized. My stove (like most in China) is pretty freaking powerful compared to a western one, but I was also disappointed in its ability to boil - 6 gallons of wort was at more of a low boil than a rolling boil.

I had also bought what I thought was a hydrometer (糖度计), but was baffled by the readings: "5" pre boil, "10" post boil; thought it was .05, but the 10 was baffling - .010 or .10 gravity? So I contacted the seller and finally figured out it wasn't a hydrometer at all (not 比重计, just 糖度计). Found another seller with them going for 9kuai, and they mark it as a 糖度计 AND 比重计. Still confused about the difference.

On another note, going to hold off on buying any more Chinese craft beers for awhile. I don't think I've ever dumped a beer before, but I was unable to finish two Shangri-La's and one Gao. BLAH. I'm pretty disappointed in the Shangri-La. None of the Gaos thrilled me, but had one Shangri-La that was quite good. Then had a doppelbock that tasted like overripe fruit and am now drinking a lager that tastes (and smells) like raw wort.

 

[FatDragon]

A lot of hydrometers here are in degrees Plato, which is roughly 1 degree Plato to 4 points SG, so 10 would be roughly 1.040. Some hydrometers print somewhat misleading information on them, such as ABV% or "finished" indicators that are intended to reflect the numbers in an average brew but are only good for estimates. That's all to say that yours might be perfectly okay if you know how to read it and what information to ignore.

I got a plug-in heating coil for something like 15-20 kuai that I sometimes use to help my stove reach the boil faster. Last brewday I forgot to unplug it when the boil started and I had wort spitting up out of the kettle above the coil until I got it unplugged. That said, a low boil is fine. If there's motion on the surface of the boiling wort, it's definitely going well enough. If you get one of those coils, be aware that mine seems to electrify the liquid it's boiling, as I've been lightly shocked by touching the kettle while it's been plugged in. For lack of any electrical measuring equipment and a preference not to get shocked again testing it the old fashioned way, I don't touch the kettle or anything metal that's touching it or the wort while the coil is plugged in.

If the beers you've bought are that bad, you might cook with them. I've made a couple stinkers before that went off surprisingly well in a big pot of chili or a loaf of beer bread.

Anyway, congrats on your first brewday and welcome to Chinese homebrewing! What was the virgin brew, by the way?

 

[Ke_Liren]

If you get one of those coils, be aware that mine seems to electrify the liquid it's boiling, as I've been lightly shocked by touching the kettle while it's been plugged in

That sounds fun!

Cheers for the info about the hydrometers, but then my beer might really have issues! If it's 1.040, I was off from my OG by a lot (supposed to be 1.057). If it is Plato, then pre-boil was 1.020. I'll check it with the new hydrometer in a little bit - just waiting on a wine thief. The only thing on mine is "5, 10, 15, 20, 25."

Finished 'em all off. I kept having hope for them. I'm not sure which Shangri-La I had that I liked, but it was pretty damn tasty. The rest... Will keep your advice in mind for next time!

Anyway, congrats on your first brewday and welcome to Chinese homebrewing! What was the virgin brew, by the way?

Cheers! It was a lot of fun and everything went wrong. For example, I had a minor panic when I realized my grinder didn't fit any tables or counters in the entire house, but we have one of those tiny stools that the aunties and shushus like to sit on while outside and it fit that. I was also rather astonished at the weight of the bag of grains (BIAB) and the amount of liquid pouring out of it. I had to stand over my pot with the grain bag for 20-30 minutes. Our airbnb guest thought that was rather comical.

My first brew was BierMuncher's Belgian Blond SWMBO Slayer. I figured it would help my girlfriend cope with the influx of brewing equipment if I made the first beer for her. It worked

 

[FatDragon]

A hoist for hanging the grain bag might be a bit of a pain to rig up, but many people use a colander that fits over their kettle and let the bag sit rather than holding it up the whole time. I haven't found a suitable colander and I have a few extra 25L buckets that get various uses in brewing and other household chores, so I made my own draining setup. I drilled a bunch of holes in one of them so now I put the bag in that bucket and nestle it inside another bucket while it drains into the roughly 5L of empty space below. I sparge my grain bag so I have to switch out the bottom buckets a few times as the bag drains and fills up the empty space, but it's a lot less work than holding the bag up for half an hour, and adding the sparge increases my efficiency and allows me to do bigger beers in my ~35L kettle.

 

[Ke_Liren]

Sounds like a nice set up, I was hoping to find a colander but ran into the same issue as you. Your way might be better for me than a hoist as I'm a renter. Will figure it out once I've got some sort of system down and know where I need to improve, etc.

 

[FatDragon]

The buckets are also good for weighing and milling grain, reserving cleaning water from the first wort chiller runoff (when it's piping hot), and of course storing up some water when your 物业 sticks a notice up on the front door of your apartment building stating that the water will be turned off for 36 hours starting Friday. They stack up and fit in my kettle so I can store them all together without taking up any extra space when they're not in use. One of the OG homebrew writers of the modern homebrew era (can't recall who) suggests almost the exact same setup as a makeshift mash tun. You would put a lid on it and then insulate it with blankets, a sleeping bag, a jacket, or whatever else for the duration of the mash, and preferably you have a tap in the bottom bucket for easy draining into your kettle.

 

[Ke_Liren]

Haven't updated in a month, but beer has been bottled for 2 weeks. Chinese friends are all excited/confused at the idea of homebrew - I've gotten many requests for a sample even after I repeatedly warn them it might well end up tasting like swill.

Other news, I went to the Shangri-La Hotel's bar after hearing that it had pretty good deals on craft beer. 35 yuan for a pint of their homebrewed beer before 8pm(58 yuan per pint after 8, beer paddle for 118), and surprisingly it's really damned delicious! They had 6 or 7 beers on tap when I went, including a really great IPA, a pretty good stout and an OK 白啤"white beer" (I didn't read the menu, but some sort of wheat beer). I was pretty astonished that my girlfriend finished an entire pint of the 白啤 by herself. She is not at all a beer person and will generally take a sip of mine if the food is spicy, but she wouldn't share this pint with me. She even liked the 黑啤！I'm pretty happy after having found this place. They have growlers for 150 yuan, but wish they'd bottle their beers. It would easily beat all the other domestic craft beers I've had so far.

 

[FatDragon]

Unfortunately bottling is really hard to do here - there are really high volume requirements for bottling beer for sale, along with other regulations. What can be done at a brewpub is a lot harder and more expensive to do at that scale (not least finding a way to sell all that beer).

Oh, and 白啤 is typically a Belgian wit. They like them here.

See if you can get to know the brewer at the hotel bar if they brew in-house. It's always good to build a network.

 

[Ke_Liren]

They do indeed brew in-house. The brew equipment is in the bar. Recommend you stop by if you ever get the chance to be in HZ!

 

[Pièce_de_Résistance]

Hello! I was fascinated to stumble across this thread. I am an avid home brewer in Seattle. I'm working on a project with a few business partners evaluating the feasibility of exporting American grown hops to China, initially to Shanghai. This idea occurred to me while traveling throughout China on business a few months ago. I stopped into a small brewpub in the shadow of Tomorrow Square and spoke at length with the owner/brewer who explained to me how difficult it was for him to get certain hop varieties. He admitted that sometimes he uses bitter melons as a substitute bittering agent. Has anyone else heard of people doing this? I am wondering if this is common.

I am trying to figure out what high quality American grown hops could be sold for to both home brewers and small craft brewpubs. I'm modeling all of the costs and whether it would be commercially feasible given the import duty and VAT. Anyone have thoughts on this?

 

[Ke_Liren]

Hello! I was fascinated to stumble across this thread. I am an avid home brewer in Seattle. I'm working on a project with a few business partners evaluating the feasibility of exporting American grown hops to China, initially to Shanghai. This idea occurred to me while traveling throughout China on business a few months ago. I stopped into a small brewpub in the shadow of Tomorrow Square and spoke at length with the owner/brewer who explained to me how difficult it was for him to get certain hop varieties. He admitted that sometimes he uses bitter melons as a substitute bittering agent. Has anyone else heard of people doing this? I am wondering if this is common.

I am trying to figure out what high quality American grown hops could be sold for to both home brewers and small craft brewpubs. I'm modeling all of the costs and whether it would be commercially feasible given the import duty and VAT. Anyone have thoughts on this?

Hey mate. Sorry, I'm not much help as I'm a total novice, so I'm sure FatDragon will chime in with a more helpful response, but Taobao seems to be the best source for home brewers buying hops. I have no idea about bulk prices, but for your reference I'm seeing around 22 yuan (Columbus, Cascade, Chinook) up to 30 yuan (Bitter Gold, Mosaic, Palisade) per 50g of American imported pellet hops. For whole leaf hops, there are far fewer choices (1 American, 4 Aussie) and they're all around 30-35 yuan. I've talked to this particular store a few times and they seem to often run out of stuff with no clear date on when they can restock, not sure if this is a supply problem or what.

Wish you luck! Having more resources for ingredients would be awesome. I've given up on a few recipes after being unable to find the right ingredients.

PS. Bitter melon as an alternative to hops sounds like a beer I'd really like to try! I wonder if it was dried or fresh bitter melon?

 

[FatDragon]

There was a bitter melon adjunct lager somewhere I traveled in 2007. Chongqing or Chengdu, I think. It was a local brewery, but not craft by any means. I've never thought of using it for bittering - if it's cooked well I actually quite enjoy bitter melon, but if it's cooked poorly it tastes like bile, and I'd worry about getting that flavor in the beer.

Hopunion/Yakima Chief sells hops to brewers in China. I think they sell a pretty wide variety here - I know my local brewpub gets new releases and experimental varieties from them sometimes. Homebrewers have a more limited selection since there aren't enough of us clamoring for new hop varieties so the homebrew shops don't sell them. @Pièce_de_Résistance, you wouldn't happen to know a guy named Adam who recently moved stateside from China, would you? A friend of mine moved back to the PNW this summer and came to me asking many of these same questions for the same reasons. My response to him was that it's not likely to work out because, well, see the first sentence of this paragraph.

@Ke_Liren - What kind of ingredients have you been struggling to find? I might be able to help. Unless it's liquid yeast, in which case I don't even bother; if I can't sub a dry strain or build up bottle dregs, I'll brew something else.

 

[Pièce_de_Résistance]

Hopunion/Yakima Chief sells hops to brewers in China. I think they sell a pretty wide variety here - I know my local brewpub gets new releases and experimental varieties from them sometimes. Homebrewers have a more limited selection since there aren't enough of us clamoring for new hop varieties so the homebrew shops don't sell them. @Pièce_de_Résistance, you wouldn't happen to know a guy named Adam who recently moved stateside from China, would you? A friend of mine moved back to the PNW this summer and came to me asking many of these same questions for the same reasons. My response to him was that it's not likely to work out because, well, see the first sentence of this paragraph.

@FatDragon - Thank you for this helpful reply! I've been talking to a few contacts from Hopunion/Yakima Chief and am learning about their presence in China. My impression has been that they're focused more on larger breweries. But from what you say it sounds like they're connecting even with small brewpubs. Would you be willing to send me your local brewpub contact via private message? I would love to correspond with him/her. Unfortunately I don't know a guy named Adam but I'd be excited to talk to him as well if he's still thinking about this idea. I agree that YHC has a leg up and an advance start but I'm wondering if the Chinese market is so huge and varied that there could be room for many entrants and exporters with different specialties.

@Ke_Liren - Thank you for your reply and the price information. This is really helpful!

 

[Ke_Liren]

@Ke_Liren - What kind of ingredients have you been struggling to find? I might be able to help. Unless it's liquid yeast, in which case I don't even bother; if I can't sub a dry strain or build up bottle dregs, I'll brew something else.

I ended up not making Yooper's Oatmeal Stout or EdWort's American Porter because I couldn't find maltodextrin anywhere. There were other hard to find ingredients, but they all seemed to be "we have none right now" (this was over a month ago). I had an issue finding:
maltodextrin which I still have not found. Asking got me "maltodextrin还没有计划进货"
chocolate pale malt which they had and have but were sold out when I was making my purchase.
flaked barley malt, same as first, "暂时没货了", but they contacted me when they got it in.

The dextrin seems to be necessary for a stout, so I was kind of perplexed by the lack of it, but maybe I just couldn't figure out the correct Chinese name. Searching in English shows me a bunch of protein powders or something. Went for an IPA instead. Had to make a sub for that, too, as the Bell's Two Hearted Ale wanted Centennial but I'm using Citra. Could have bought pellets but wanted to try using whole hop flowers once!

@Ke_Liren - Thank you for your reply and the price information. This is really helpful!

Good luck to you!

 

[FatDragon]

I ended up not making Yooper's Oatmeal Stout or EdWort's American Porter because I couldn't find maltodextrin anywhere. There were other hard to find ingredients, but they all seemed to be "we have none right now" (this was over a month ago). I had an issue finding:
maltodextrin which I still have not found. Asking got me "maltodextrin还没有计划进货"
chocolate pale malt which they had and have but were sold out when I was making my purchase.
flaked barley malt, same as first, "暂时没货了", but they contacted me when they got it in.

The dextrin seems to be necessary for a stout, so I was kind of perplexed by the lack of it, but maybe I just couldn't figure out the correct Chinese name. Searching in English shows me a bunch of protein powders or something. Went for an IPA instead. Had to make a sub for that, too, as the Bell's Two Hearted Ale wanted Centennial but I'm using Citra. Could have bought pellets but wanted to try using whole hop flowers once!

Good luck to you!

I've definitely seen maltodextrin for sale before. Might have been 慢品啤酒, but I'm not sure. There's a lot available if you search for 麥芽糊精, but I don't know if it's the same stuff as you'd use in a beer.

I think English malts are pretty new to the homebrew market here, hence pale chocolate being hard to source. I don't think I could have gotten it at all a couple years ago.

As for flaked barley, I used it in one of my first brews. I bought it from some random taobao shop. I just tried searching for flaked barley and got bogged down in oatmeal because of Taobao's crappy search algorithms, so I went to my purchase history. The shop where I bought flaked barley now specializes in tape, oddly enough. My guess is that they went out of business and sold the shop (with its good seller rating and all that) to someone new. Try 大麦 大麦片 for your search - you have to fiddle with the search terms on Taobao because of their crappy search algorithms, but flaked barley is definitely out there.

@FatDragon - Thank you for this helpful reply! I've been talking to a few contacts from Hopunion/Yakima Chief and am learning about their presence in China. My impression has been that they're focused more on larger breweries. But from what you say it sounds like they're connecting even with small brewpubs. Would you be willing to send me your local brewpub contact via private message? I would love to correspond with him/her. Unfortunately I don't know a guy named Adam but I'd be excited to talk to him as well if he's still thinking about this idea. I agree that YHC has a leg up and an advance start but I'm wondering if the Chinese market is so huge and varied that there could be room for many entrants and exporters with different specialties.

@Ke_Liren - Thank you for your reply and the price information. This is really helpful!

I think Adam has moved on to other pursuits. He had contacts with a hop farm in Yakima but determined that they didn't have anything special to offer the market so it was likely to be a losing endeavor.

My brewpub guy buys Yakima Chief/Hopunion hops by the 5/10kg bag. It's possible he buys through a distributor - I couldn't say for sure. I'd look up Talos (塔罗斯) - they do a lot of equipment and ingredient stuff for brewers here and if he's not buying directly from YCH, he's probably buying from them.

 

[Ke_Liren]

I've definitely seen maltodextrin for sale before. Might have been 慢品啤酒, but I'm not sure. There's a lot available if you search for 麥芽糊精, but I don't know if it's the same stuff as you'd use in a beer.

Thanks for the help! I'll check for maltodextrin again after I come back from New Year's. Really wanted a stout in the winter, but it was the only thing I really couldn't find. I seem to recall asking two or three stores and none of them had any, nor generally held it in stock. Managed to buy the flaked barley from another store (but had to pay shipping since they were in Sichuan).

Not sure if you've used 超级麦芽自酿啤酒 before, but they seem like a pretty good Taobao store. They have a large selection and lots of different brands. I had never thought I'd be able to actually choose the brand, e.g. MO, while in China and would settle for anything on offer, but they have 3-4 options for some malts.

The shop where I bought flaked barley now specializes in tape, oddly enough.

China in a nutshell.

 

[FatDragon]

Thanks for the help! I'll check for maltodextrin again after I come back from New Year's. Really wanted a stout in the winter, but it was the only thing I really couldn't find. I seem to recall asking two or three stores and none of them had any, nor generally held it in stock. Managed to buy the flaked barley from another store (but had to pay shipping since they were in Sichuan).

Not sure if you've used 超级麦芽自酿啤酒 before, but they seem like a pretty good Taobao store. They have a large selection and lots of different brands. I had never thought I'd be able to actually choose the brand, e.g. MO, while in China and would settle for anything on offer, but they have 3-4 options for some malts.

China in a nutshell.

Dang, nice find! I haven't had to buy much in the last couple years other than a few sacks of base malt from a local brewpub and the occasional hops and yeast, so I haven't done much taobao shopping for brew stuff. DME (albeit very expensive...), tons of malts... but I'm most excited about the lacto they're selling - can't wait to try a proper pitch of L. Plantarum for my next kettle sour!

 

[tusabez]

Hi guys,

I just recently moved to Chongqing from Los Angeles and have been brewing all grain for over 5 years. I stumbled upon this thread as I want to continue brewing here. I'm probably going with BIAB since I have limited space and probably stick with 2 gallon batches. Since the weather gets pretty warm here, I plan to do some meads as well. I can't read Chinese so I'll need to make friends quick to help me order online. I did pick up a few packs of dry yeast and an autosiphon before I left home.

 

[tusabez]

What do you guys use to sanitize?

 

[FatDragon]

Welcome to homebrewing in China! The hobby is growing so the ingredients and equipment available to us are getting ever easier to source, with more variety as well. That said, it definitely helps to have a native speaker (or someone who is passably fluent in the language, at least) help with acquiring supplies until you learn the ropes. Bonus points if they have brewing experience, since a native speaker who has never brewed would have almost as much trouble finding the right stuff as you would without speaking any Chinese.

If you do mead, be forewarned that a lot of honey here is cut with corn syrup or otherwise adulterated. I've only done a few batches myself and most of them turned out (not necessarily 'well', but they turned out, at least), but one was a complete loss as the "honey" refused to ferment past ~50% apparent attenuation in spite of all of the nutrients, aeration, and repitches I tried. I don't have any particular advice on getting good honey for mead here, I just know that not all honey here is good.

What do you guys use to sanitize?

I started with iodophor, which is really cheap and can be bought at a pharmacy, and then moved on to peracetic acid, which is also pretty cheap but required mixing from two bottles when I mixed my sanitizer. I finally decided to just take the plunge and buy an 8 oz bottle of Starsan, though. It's more expensive here than in the States, but the low dilution and long-term effectiveness finally sold me on the minor investment as an alternative to peracetic, which I had to remix every brew day.

 

[tusabez]

Thanks for the tips! I'll definitely splurge for starsan since I don't want to mess around mixing stuff up. I had someone help me order some equipment and ingredients on TaoBao and have received most of it. I look forward to brewing this weekend. I'm going with a simple golden ale before the weather starts warming up

 

[tusabez]

Well the Golden ale really turned more into an amber haha. I ordered Crystal malts but it didn't specify the color so it ended up darker than expected. I've had a few bottles and it turned pretty good. I now have a saison fermenting and plan to brew again tomorrow as soon as this heat wave passes.

 

[FatDragon]

Well the Golden ale really turned more into an amber haha. I ordered Crystal malts but it didn't specify the color so it ended up darker than expected. I've had a few bottles and it turned pretty good. I now have a saison fermenting and plan to brew again tomorrow as soon as this heat wave passes.

Domestically malted crystal? If so, it's pretty inconsistent stuff. Great sometimes and scorched and horrible sometimes. I pretty much only use imported crystal/caramel malts for that reason. My last brew was a Doppelbock sometime in January or February that I finally bottled a few weeks ago, but I'll be doing a double brewday on Sunday just in time to try out the new chest freezer fermentation chamber my wife ordered for my birthday.