| General Information FAQs |
| Ale
versus Lager |
| Midwest Homebrewing Supplies offers a large selection of
recipe kits. Our kits cover ale, lager, wheat and specialty hybrid styles. All ales come
with a "top fermenting" yeast, while the lagers come with a "bottom
fermenting" yeast. The ales ferment best at a temperature of between 60°F and
70°F, while lagers should be fermented between 45°F and 60°F. Lagers require a
longer period of bottle conditioning, typically 6 weeks. This is ideally accomplished in a
refrigerator, but a cool basement floor during the winter months also works well . To
determine if your basement is cool enough simply place a glass of water on your basement
floor with a thermometer in it. If the thermometer reads between 45°F and 60°F,
you’re ready to lager. |
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What is in our homebrew
kits? |
|
All homebrewing recipe
kits from Midwest include: Briess malt extract (unless otherwise noted), specialty grains,
imported and domestic hops, fresh yeast, sugar, priming sugar, muslin grain bag and
complete, easy-to-follow instructions. They are designed to brew 5 gallon batches. |
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Where do our
ingredients come from? |
|
Our malt extract is made by Briess Malting Company
from Chilton, Wisconsin. Peterson honey of Minnesota fills the 3.3 and 6 pound jugs and
delivers them to our store every 2 weeks. Peterson honey already has the sanitary food
repacking facilities to provide this service to Midwest. Peterson Honey orders the barrels
of malt extract from Briess on a monthly basis. What does this all mean? It means our malt
extract is as fresh as it comes. This results in better beer. We have complete turn over
of all of our malt extract every 2-3 weeks. The result is better fermentations and better
tasting beer. Tip, when brewing with our malt extracts, peel the label off and dip it in
the brew water to rinse out all of the malt extract. Then recycle the plastic jug.
The same can be said for our hops. LD Carlson of Ohio packs our hops.
These hops are packaged in light/oxygen barrier bags and are purged with CO2 for maximum
freshness.
Our specialty grains are stored in air tight
containers until they are packaged. We do not crush your grains until prior to shipping.
Our yeast’s are also as fresh as you’ll find nationwide. We order our
yeast’s every Monday and have them expressed shipped in every Friday. They are
refrigerated until prior to shipping. Some homebrew suppliers will buy their ingredients
in large quantities and slowly repackage them. These ingredients can sit around for
months. |
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