I'm with you on this one. All of my hop purchases are internet these days--not only is the price better (even with shipping,) but so is the variety. My HBS carries a lot of stock, but they're all pellet and I prefer whole leaf or plug for the most part.
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Bought a pound of centennial and a pound of amarillo online a couple of weeks back, too. They were only about $10/pound, and make brewing a IIPA a whole lot cheaper!
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OK, with all these awesome brews I have to be the dumby and ask; how do I start homebrewing? Is there a kit or anything out there and is there guide to brewing? Can someone help me? Thanks gang.
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http://www.howtobrew.com/

Read this, and if you are still interested get down to your local homebrew supply and purchase the supplies you need. Tell them what you want to brew, and that you are new and they should be able to set you up with a kit that includes what you absolutely need, and not the extra stuff that you will wind up buying later anyway.
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Going to try my first brew-in-a-bag method this weekend (which is my first all-grain, too). Anyone who has done it have any pointers?

It's a small batch - a 3-gallon Bell's Two-Hearted clone. I'm still doing stove-top and my boil maxes out at about 4.5 gallons.
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I brewed this saison today. This may have been my smoothest brew day (evening) yet.

LB OZ
6 0 Pilsner Liquid Extract
1 5 Rahr White Wheat Malt
0 5 Munich Malt - 10L
0 5 Vienna Malt
0 4 Acidulated Malt
0 4 Biscuit Malt

1 oz German Tradition 60 mins 5.7 AA
1 oz Hallertauer 30 mins 3.7 AA

Wyeast 3711 French Saison pitched at 65*. (Built up a 2 liter starter on my stir plate over 4 days, cold crashed to pitch one concentrated liter.)

OG = 1.052, 22.6 IBU's, SRM = 5, plan FG = 1.010, plan ABV = 5.5%

I've now got 20 gallons of beer in various stages of fermentation. :-)
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20 gal? Nice Warren!

I brewed up my Deathbrewer Dunkelweiss partial mash...I only hit 1.042 :-)

Hopefully my starter was robust enough to get this thing dried out so I can at least get high 4% abv....5% seems unlike, but we shall see. Used a wort chiller for the first time, loved it.
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For those of you who buy bulk pellet hops how do you store them after opening the air tight package? I'm been thinking about buying a pound of cascade, east kent golding, and hallertau but I don't want them to go bad.
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I put them in a ziplock bag and put them in the Freezer
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Me too, and try to get as much air out as possible. If I had a vacuum sealer I'd probably use that and maybe even seal them into small packs of a couple ounces each.
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I've been keeping mine in a zip lock bag, and putting them into a canning jar, and then into the freezer.
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Who worries about storage? You just need to brew more! :-) :-)






But seriously, a compressed ziploc baggie in the freezer should do the trick. They're pelletized, and already at a lesser chance of spoilage than, say, whole cones because of the resin that they're coated with. They'll keep in the refrigerator for a few months.
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And you should be able to start for under ~$100. Then it gets addicting and you spend more :-)
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Albert,
Just from reading all these posts I can see that this brew thing can get very expensive. But man I bet it is worth every penny. :-)
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I am very limited in my experience but I will say this; when you pour a beer enjoy your glass and LOVE the way it tastes and realize you made it, it is worth every penny.
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:-):-):-)

And when OTHER people say "Wow, you made this!"
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I honestly don't think that homebrewing is expensive at all. My initial set up was about $90. I've added another carboy and 2 more plastic fermenting buckets, but otherwise I'm brewing with the same basic outfit.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewing-starter-kit.html

Oh, and I also bought a copper immersion chiller for about $45.

http://www.nybrewsupply.com/products...sion.php#c3825

There's a few other odds and ends I've purchased, but overall I have under $250 invested in my gear, which I think isn't bad at all considering how much I've spent on other hobbies. :-)

The one thing I would recommend buying, but is not absolutely necessary, is a large kettle. I have a 5 gallon one and wish I had a larger one. At some point I will buy a 10 gallon kettle.
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Daryle, all things considered, it's not expensive at all. I don't even consider my equipment costs anymore, because I've been using most of the same stuff for the past 15 years. The supply cost for each 5 gallon/48 bottle batch (grains, hops, yeast) run me anywhere from $15-40 depending on the style. The more expensive batches are mostly for things like DIPAs, imperial stouts and barleywines--and retail versions of these go for $10/4pack. The economics are still in my favor!

I figure it's still much cheaper than golf or other hobbies, and I get a lot of satisfaction, as others have said.
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First dry hop infusion (Simcoe) went in to my Hopslam clone. SG = 1.020, so we're sitting right at 9% alcohol, thanks to the 1.5# of honey I added a few weeks ago. Tasted awesome.

Second dry hop infusion (Amarillo) goes in on Sunday, and I'll let it all sit for about a week until bottling. :-)
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Sounds tasty :-)
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