New Guy here and moving to Hawaii

Hello all

    I have been lurking for a bit since I started brewing, less than a year. I have gained a lot of knowledge from reading your posts and sharing of info, however thought it was time to come out of the shadows. Also I am leaving the sunny Pacific Northwest for Oahu Hawaii shortly. So if there are any Oahu home brewers out there I would really like to pick your brains about LHBS and brew houses in the area. Great to finally meet you all.

John

I have a cousin that lives there and home brewed for a while. He said he ordered ingredients from Williams Brewing in California. Sadly, he stopped brewing a few years back. I'm not sure about the LHBS situation there.

Good luck with the move and enjoy the awesome year-round weather.

Hi John,
welcome to the forum and Hawaii!

I am on Maui so I don't know much about the scene on Oahu.

There is a store - homebrewinparadise.com - run by a guy called Mike. I have only ever ordered online and the srevive has been great. Bigger or specialty stuff I order from Williams /Northern Brewer/Midwest Supplies. Unless you brew exclusively Belgian styles you will have to have some means of controlling the fermentation temp. As average temp is between 80-90F depending on the season.

Thanks for the info. I was wondering about fermentation temps.....guess I will be getting a ferment chamber now.

Aloha from Molokai, just next door to you.  I'm in the process of building my set-up and have been purchasing items from MoreBeer and amazon.  I plan on being up and ready by the spring.  The longer timeframe is due to the fact you have to order everything from the mainland.  Be careful in ordering from Hawaii retailers.  I contacted a retailer on the islands to inquire about ordering a Blichmann Boilermaker pot (10 gallon).  The retailer quoted me $1500 (yeah, the pot costs about $350 on the mainland so he was seriously ripping me off!).  I ended up buying it from Morebeer for a quarter of the price the Hawaii distributor quoted me.  Since I live on an island of 7000 people, I need everything shipped to me. 

I plan on doing all grain and will have my fermenter in a mini-fridge(temp controller attached)  to ensure proper cooling.  Note that electricity costs are high on the islands.

Looking forward to comparing brew plans with you.