Home Brewing Supply and other Home Brewing Information

When it comes to home brewing supply most people are talking about the raw materials they need to be able to brew. Now that you have got all your home brewing equipment to be able to brew. You need malt for your mash tun, hops for your kettle and yeast for your fermentation. When it comes to making a decent brew ingredients are very important. It is vital to find a good home brewing supply source.

Making beer is like cooking and when you cook let’s say a stir fry for example if you use fresh organic vegetables with an free range chicken then use a fresh sauce you made from scratch it is always going to taste better then anything you get out of a jar. This is the same when it comes to beer.

It is better if you can go for an all grain mash rather than malt extract. Although these days malt extracts are pretty good; it still isn’t the same as being able to use grain particularly if you can mill it yourself so you end up with the perfect crush.  The added value from using fresh grain is that you have more range to experiment and come up with unique recipes or to copy the style of beer you have tried, liked and want to re-create. It is possible to get all manner of fresh grain through the internet as there are a number of home brewing supply online resources which have all the variety of grains you could ever need from pilsner malt to flaked oats.

Flaked oats are great if you are making a nice strong stout. If you are making a stout then you don’t really need to add too many hops for either bitterness or aroma. All the flavor comes from the specialized malts that you will use including roast barley. Roast barley also has it own flavor which adds a certain bitterness to any beer it is used in. This roast barley also adds other flavors to the beer including a coffee according to some (everyone’s taste bud are slightly different).

When looking for home brew supply you maybe in for a surprise as hops have gone up drastically in price and in the last 24 months they have almost quadrupled in price. You need hops to add bitterness to your beer but not necessarily for the aroma of your brew. You can use for example coriander seeds and orange peel. If you are going to use coriander seeds then you need to crush them and then roast them in an oven for around 10 minutes. I put my coriander seeds about 20 minutes before the end of my boil. It give an nice spicy flavor to the beer and works great for a winter warmer.

Finding a good source for your home brewing supply is vital and I would recommend trying to build you a good relationship with your supplier. They maybe able to help you above and beyond the norm and it always good to be on decent with your home brewing supply source.