FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

QUESTION: “What do you sell?”

ANSWER: We specialise in bulk ingredients for brewing beer from grain. We are not your run-of-the-mill homebrew shop. We sell an wide range of brewing malts and hop pellets. We don’t sell goo tins, we don’t sell flavours for moonshine, we don’t sell cheese cultures or kegerators, or bar mats or jerky. We try to stick to one main thing and to do it well. If you want to make beer the proper way using fresh ingredients, you have come to the right place.

QUESTION: “Do you have a shopfront? Can I just come in and buy things?”

ANSWER: Yes and no, we have a shopfront that is primarily for collecting online orders. We are an online business, meaning everything – all sales and inventory – is run through our website. You are welcome to come to our shop to buy some bits and pieces, however we will always prioritise existing online orders before processing in-store orders. All grain orders MUST be placed through our website, it is simply unfair to our other customers who place orders online, to not process their orders before yours.

QUESTION: “How long should I wait after placing an order before I come and get it?”

ANSWER: We will email you an “Order Ready For Pickup” email when your order is ready – check you junk/spam folders. Our peak periods are Monday and Thursday mornings, and before Public Holidays. If your order contains lots of individually packed milled grain, please allow ample time for us to process your order.

QUESTION: “How much does your freight cost? Do you offer free freight or a flat rate fee?”

ANSWER: Because we deal with a range of bulk ingredients that vary massively in terms of size and cubic weight, we are unable to offer a flat fee for delivery. Our freight costs are calculated live on the checkout page of our website based on a combination of weight, volume, your shipping zone, and current fuel charges. We are always reviewing our freight prices to remain competitive. You will see that goods under 5kg incur a smaller shipping charge than 25kg sacks of grain for example, just as you will see a smaller freight charge to metro areas versus regional areas. Hoppy Days offers a FREE FREIGHT option for orders valued at or over $200. Please note that this offer is aimed at compact goods such as hops and yeast and is limited to orders weighing up to 4.5kg. We reserve the right to select the freight provider and to apply additional freight costs and/or revoke the Free Freight offer if additional goods are added to your order.
For orders within the Brisbane area, the weight limit for Free Freight is extended to 25kg.

QUESTION: “I found a recipe online, can I send it to you to prepare it for me?”

ANSWER: Given that there are so many different malts on the market and we don’t want to give you the wrong thing, we don’t accept recipe orders over the phone or through email. If you’re not sure what to pick for a recipe, our advice is to have a look at our GRAIN GUIDE and the different malts that we sell, and pick grains that suit your recipe based on a similar colour rating (EBC) and a description that sounds pleasing to you. Brewing a lager? Use a pilsner malt as your base. Chasing an obscure Norwegian specialty malt? Filter your search through our grain section by “Character Malt” to find the grain that will give your recipe the extra oomph it needs. We have put a lot of time and development into our HOPPY DAYS RECIPE BUILDER so that you can put together a grain recipe order quickly and easily; we recommend you use it to place all recipe orders.

QUESTION: “What’s the difference between PALE malt and ALE malt?”

ANSWER: “Pale Malt” is a generic term used by maltsters to refer to a lightly kilned malt lending a light colour and low overall malt flavour. This can be a bit confusing because Pale Malt is often a Pilsner-variety grain. Pale Malt should be sought out for lighter coloured beers where malt complexity or richness is not desirable. ‘Ale Malt’ is a catch-all for malt varieties kilned to a slightly higher colour, lending a fuller body and a sweeter finish. This category includes English heritage varieties which are notable for giving a nutty and/or honey quality to the finished beer.

QUESTION: “My beer isn’t bubbling anymore. Is it done?”

ANSWER: Airlock activity isn’t a perfect indication of whether or not a brew has finished fermenting. Differences in ambient temperature, trapped CO2 escaping from underneath the sediment layer, along with other factors can give a false indication the a brew has stopped, or is continuing. The only way to properly monitor the progress of fermentation is to check the SPECIFIC GRAVITY using a hydrometer. When you suspect fermentation has stopped, draw off a sample and take a reading – note this down and/or take a photo. Do the same thing 24 and 48 hours later. If the reading is stable, this confirms that fermentation is complete. If there is still a change in the reading, fermentation has not finished. Register a stable reading before cold crashing and packaging your beer.

QUESTION: “Do you do CO2 Refills?”

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: “Are you open?”

ANSWER: We are open Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm, and Saturdays 8:30am to 1pm. We are closed on Sundays and Public Holidays. If you give us a call and there is a human person that answers the phone, chances are that you are calling between these hours and we are indeed open.

QUESTION: “I want to order some grain and it says ‘from $3.32 per kg’ on the website but when I go to order it it says ‘$6.50 per kg’? What’s the right price?”

ANSWER: At Hoppy Days our philosophy is to BUY IN BULK & SAVE! All of our grains and hops feature quantity break pricing. What this means is that as you go up by weight range – let’s say from 50g of hops to 500g – the per gram price drops substantially. The same applies with our grain – if you are after the cheapest possible price, purchase grain by the 25kg (ie, a full sack).
For grain, the price break applies at 1kg, 5kg, and 25kg. For hops, the price break applies at 100g, 250g, 500g, 1kg, and 5kg.

QUESTION: “I want to get into all grain but there’s so much conflicting advice floating around online. Where do I start and how should I know what to focus on?”

ANSWER: There is the old adage: “Ask 12 homebrewers a question and you’ll get 12 different answers”– this also applies to Facebook and brewing forums. Brewing is not a new hobby; there are some pillars of good brewing practice that have not and will not change: use good cleaning and sanitising processes, and control the temperature of your fermentation to suit your yeast.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO:

• Use magnets for dry hopping
• Buy a hop bong
• Pressure ferment
• Use RO water for your first batch
• Cold condition a lager for 6 months
• Buy a stirplate for liquid yeast
• Transfer to a secondary vessel

Where should you start?

1. Source a system for all-grain brewing- as a rule of thumb pick a vessel 50% larger than the amount of beer you want to make (23L Batches = 35L or bigger). This can be an all-in-one system or a single vessel for brew-in-a-bag.
2. Source temperature control for brewing. This is as simple as a second hand fridge or freezer + temperature controller (external thermostat).
   ^ OR, until you have temperature control sorted, select yeasts for your recipes that are suited to the temperatures you can reaistically achieve at home, such as Kveik yeast.