• Home
• Product Reviews
• Brewing Your Own Book Shop
• Recommended Home Brewing Stores
• Link Partners

So what stores carry home brew kits?

May 10th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

A question often asked when people start to investigate the home brewing hobby is where they can find the kits needed for home brewing. The moment you decide that home brew is what you want to do you need to think about how you want to do it. you can get a recipe for beer or wine from the internet and figure out to get all the ingredients from a store or you could go for a complete kit. Then the question is what stores carry home brew kits.

The first thing you should start with is go online and go to your favorite search engine. Their you could type “what stores carry home brew kits” and press enter. You will get a few results you can choose from, or at least a few sites with more tips on how to find what stores carry home brew kits.

You will also see a lot of sites in your search results that will sell these kits and deliver them to your door so won’t even have to leave your house to start this wonderful hobby. Maybe you do like to see the retailer face to face then you should be looking for one in your neighbourhood or be prepared to travel the distance to the one nearest by.

Another tip would be to flip through your local directory and see if there are any home brewing stores listed in there, chances are they stock home brew kits so will not need to look very far. If your not so lucky that there is such a store nearby you could try at a local hobby shop. It may surprise you but as home brewing is a hobby for most people these shops also started to get supplies for those people as well.

So the answer to the question “What stores carry home brew kits” can be answered with “A lot more then you would think, you just have to look for them”.

Home Brewing Chicago A Old Tradition

March 31st, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

In Chicago prohibition remained until 1978 because of a clerical error, but it seems that even before prohibition started in the 1920s that many people were brewing their own alcoholic wines and beers. Home brewing in Chicago was then and still is a very popular craft. Ever though there is some disagreement about the term moonshine but the most accepted is the one attributing the name of home brewing Chicago at night, under the light of the moon.

In many movies about prohibition when the topic is about home brewing Chicago is often the home of facilities that sold the brew in after hours businesses and places usually referred to as speakeasies. Despite complaints by major commercial brewers, the prohibition against homemade wine and spirits was lifted in 1933. However, the act that ended prohibition remained in effect for beer until 1978 due to a clerical error that left it out of the original act.

Since the ban was lifted people have been brewing their own beer along with making their own wine and other alcoholic beverages and many sources are available for supplies for home brewing in Chicago and various other large cities. Find the resources for hops, barley and other ingredients is not limited to the states in which they are grown and for many micro-breweries involved in home brewing Chicago is the place to find what they need.

Supplies and demands

As with most every commodity on the market, supply and demand typically controls the price. With supplied needed for home brewing Chicago’s mercantile exchange is the home of many of the commodity markets for hops and other ingredients used in home brewing of beer. The price of sugar and yeast is also controlled by the market that fluctuates with the demand for goods compared to the available supply.

Many of the ingredients can suffer due to weather, or many more people begin to buy the available crop, because of this the price of ingredients used in home brewing Chicago can rise. This could not only have an effect on home brewing as an hobby but also on micro breweries and the large corporations. The Chicago area is not one of the main areas where ingredients grow, Chicago can never compete with other more southern areas where there is a much longer growing season.

Adding Up The Calories: Home Brewing Low Calorie Beer

March 22nd, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

When you buy commercial brewed light beer you know how many calories there will be in it, you can find it on the label and most of the time it will have about 150 calories. When you are home brewing low calorie beer, it is much more difficult to determine the amount of calories your beer has. There are many things that influence the amount of calories, from the amount of sugar to the carbohydrates from the malt and hobs, even the method of brewing can contribute to a higher amount of calories.

The basic principal of brewing beer is based on the fermentation of the hops and malt and the amount of sugar used in the brew. Different brew recipes will require different amounts of sugar, as will the preference of the person doing the brewing. Some people believe that home brewing low calorie beer can be accomplished by using sugar substitutes or vegetable-based sweeteners instead of sugar, but that can affect the fermentation process as well as the required temperatures for fermentation to occur.

If you are one the ones that have decided to brew your own beer for the first time, chances are you have purchased a kit from which all brews can be made. If the plan is for home brewing low calorie beer the easiest way is to buy a low calorie beer brewing kit.

Add up the calories on the labels

While there are a lot of mathematical formulas involving knowing the specific scientific weight of all of the ingredients to calculate the number of calories in you bottle of beer, one of the easiest ways remains knowing simple addition. When home brewing low calorie beer, simply look on the labels of all of the ingredients in the batch and add up the total calories. Since the product labels typically involve breaking it down per serving, it is usually the amount of calories that will be a 12-ounce serving of beer.

If the calorie count seems too high and you do not plan on doing 150 jumping jacks for every bottle you drink to break even on calories, you can consider using artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners also have calories, but less than regular table sugar. And remember when home brewing low calorie beer is the aim, you may should lower your expectations in taste. Because changing the ingredients can also change the taste of the beer.

Product Review Homebrew Kegging Kit (without tank)

March 18th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Homebrew Kegging Kit w/out Cornelius Tank

Product Features

Dispense your home brewed beer. This kit includes ball lock style disconnects. No home brew tank included!!

Includes

• Double gauge regulator with shut off
• CO2 tubing and clamps
• Ball Style Disconnects
• 4’ of tubing and plastic faucet
• 5# Aluminum CO2 Tank

Product Review

This kegging kit contains everything you need. It is also availeble with a 5 gallon stainless steel product tank.

Homebrew Kegging Kit w/out Cornelius Tank

Home Brew Costs Change With Price Of Aroma Hops

February 11th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Because of the market demand for aroma hops, home brew costs are going through the roof.

The hidden costs

Starting your own home brewery can be cheap and efficient or a real money drain. It all depends on what you already own and what kind of quality the equipment is that you buy. Basically the costs for home brew equipment should be expected to be about $150. But remember that this is only for the equipment and does not include any of the much needed ingredients. A general rule is, that for a batch of five-gallon home brew, the costs are about $3 per six pack for light-body ale beer.

Estimates on home brew costs will vary widely depending on the cost of the ingredients, which lately have skyrocketed due to a shortage of available aroma hops in the home brew market. As recently as 2000, hops were selling on the open market at about $2 a pound. In 2007, the price of hops was about $26 per pound, if they could be found at all. This price increase has greatly influenced home brew costs and has threatened to put a halt to the home brew market.

As many commercial brewers have the price they pay for hops locked in by contract in maybe a year or two the increase in hops prices will affect the price of beer and unless there is a drastic increase in supply, the demand for hops threatens to make home brew costs out of range for many individual brewers.

Equipment Costs Remaining Stable

Although the ingredient cost will fluctuate with the market, the cost of equipment such as:

• a five gallon pot
• a hydrometer to measure alcohol content
• bottle sanitizer and topper

have remained fairly constant. While the average home brew costs for equipment ranges around $150, people can spend over $300 to have all of the equipment they might ever use in making their own beer.

Keeping the costs low

If you are on a budget you could reduce the starting home brew costs by finding equipment that is not to expensive. On the other hand, if you think that home brewing will become a long-term love you should probably spend the extra money because it may well be worth the investment. Home brew costs, adding the rest of the ingredients (yeast, bottle caps and malt) to the picture and excluding the hops, will be around $12 per case of 12-0nze bottles or about $20 for a five-gallon batch.

Cutting costs could even be fun if the home brewer puts the finished product in a keg, that way you don’t have to spend money on bottles and caps. The costs of the tap can be divided up among the number of times it is used to reduce the home brew costs for every batch.

In the end

You can keep the home brew costs lower by doing things different or by buying smarter. In the end keep this in mind, it’s a hobby you and your friends can have a lot of fun with. And all hobbies cost money, home beer brewing is no different. When your friends like the end product and enjoy drinking it with you, why not ask them to chip in so you can keep providing them with nice beer tasting parties?

Have fun.

Copyright © 2008 Home Made Beer Brewing