Buying Wine Supplies From eBay
1276 days ago
Well guys, my attempt to make an Apfelwein has hit a snag – where to get the Red Star Cote de Blanc Yeast! It is not available at my local homebrewing store. In fact, most wine supplies are not available there. As some of you might know, it is only recently that the Singapore government has allowed us mere mortals to make wine legally, so we are all beginners here and thus, there simply isn’t much of an interest in wine making. I must admit that even if our local home brewing store brings in wine ingredients and supplies, I doubt that business will be as good as those for beer brewing supplies. I also need to mention that in Singapore, not many Singaporeans appreciate fine wine. Even my friends who had worked for years in European countries do not have a taste for wine. At most they drink a cup or two during dinners.
Ah-ha! I have found a brilliant solution, get from eBay! There are several stores there selling Beer and Wine making supplies and I have found one which provides very reasonable shipping charges to Singapore. It’s The Bruhaus. No, no, they didn’t pay me to advertise for them. Nor am I getting any freebies from them. But for one thing, I am their customer. I have purchased the Red Star Cote de Blanc Yeast from them. It’s a 10 x 5g yeast pack and for just US$5.95 + US$3.15 for shipping. In total, the cost is just S$14-15 for 10 packs! Pretty cheap, considering that it cost about S$6.5 per pack in Singapore. I am all for supporting our local homebrewing store and all that, but sometimes we need some competition to get things going. The price difference is quite significant and it does not look good for the wine making community (if there is any) in Singapore if the prices remain so high. However, I am quite sure that if there are people interested in wine making, those people will certainly be in the higher income bracket, so a few dollars here and there won’t make much a difference to them anyway.That would leave poor guys like me in the shithole, as usual.
Anyways, it should arrive in one or two weeks’ time. I am really looking forward to making some Apfelwein! I am keeping my fingers cross that it would come out great tasting like those people in the wine making forums say it would. Hmm…it’s making me thirsty just thinking about it! And I read that the Cote de Blanc yeast ferments very slowly. That shouldn’t be any problem as seeing that I am always keeping my beers in the (primary) fermenter for about a month anyways. And I will be aging this for several months before drinking as well.
