DIY BrewHouse, 10509 Two Notch Road, Elgin, SC (2025)

10/09/2020

What a long, difficult, up and down past two weeks it has been. Was so good seeing you guys/gals last weekend for our closeout day at the store. Reaching over and switching off the "OPEN" sign for one last time was like being hit with a ton of bricks. That was a reality check and a meaningful moment. Ever heard the expression that your life passes before your eyes in the moments just before death? That was a surreal moment for me in the few minutes before turning off the open sign at DIY BrewHouse.

I personally appreciate each and every customer that walked through the front door; whether you were just passing by wondering what the sign on the building meant, or were an all in avid homebrewer. You were not just a customer or a potential customer....you were viewed as a friend. That's how I tried to run my business. Get to know you first, and then help you become better at your craft of fermentation. From beginner to advanced.

Although DIY BrewHouse is no longer open for business, my passion for homebrewing does not end here. Neither should yours. We share a common thread. For those of you reading this and wish to remain in contact, simply reply offline and I will share some personal contact info. I'm always open to answering emails, phone calls, etc with questions homebrewing related.

Cheers,
Kevin

10/03/2020

If you are coming to DIY today and cannot find a place to park.....we are slowly blocking some off in front of the store for you guys.

09/26/2020

Just over 4 years ago, Wendy and I took over ownership of DIY BrewHouse with intention of bringing to you our interpretation of the best damn homebrew shop. To steal from The Grateful Dead....what a long strange trip it's been.

During that time many friendships were forged, many good homebrews were made and shared. Knowledge was imparted to new customers coming into DIY knowing nothing about homebrewing that were skeptical with questions of "I can make good beer at home and you can teach me how?" Conversations with customers having intention of going pro one day and opening a brewery. Congrats to one customer that has indeed achieved that goal and another in planning phases!

All good things must come to an end in our cycle of life. That time has arrived for DIY BrewHouse. It's with a heavy heart that we make this official announcement. In keeping with the original DIY monthly customer homebrew share events, join us for one last event on Oct 3rd at the store. Ya'll know the drill. Bring it and share it. This one will be our last hoorah along with a blowout sale of what's left on our shelves.

You guys have become part of our lives for the past 4 years, and will continue in the future. The river of beer is wide and our paths will certainly crisscross in the future.

Cheers,
Kevin & Wendy

07/30/2020

Quick update on some DIY store hours. We are unfortunately closed today. Will be open tomorrow (Friday). And then closed for a weeklong vacation until Aug 11.

Cheers,
Kevin

05/29/2020

Come get your brewing supplies for the weekend! DIY will be closed on Saturday for a short day off.

04/06/2020

Hi gang! Hope that everyone is being safe during these crazy times we are living in. We are in this together, and we will get through it together.

In light of more mandatory non-essential business closures taking effect today at 5:00 PM, DIY BrewHouse will adhere to those guidelines. Our retail store will be closed to foot traffic inside in the store. However, curbside pickup is being allowed for retail stores while maintaining social distancing measures. We will be updating our store hours in the next day or so along with some procedures for curbside pickup. Check our page periodically.

Thank you so much for supporting DIY and other local small businesses! We could not do it without you guys.

Cheers,
Kevin

03/19/2020

DIY will be closed today (3/19). Unrelated to CV-19. We will be on normal hours for Friday and Saturday.

DIY is doing everything possible to keep our customers safe while still shopping at the store. Call in or email orders are encouraged during this time as well. Given enough heads up, we will have your order ready for pick up when you arrive.

Phone : (803) 466-6026
Email : [email protected]

Stay safe and brew on.

Cheers,
Kevin

02/28/2020

Earlier in the week, we kegged up a fruit wine. Not wanting to leave an empty carboy, we cleaned/sanitized it, and started another wine (plum wine). Couple days later our fermentation was sluggish at best. (We know why too). Had another package of yeast on hand, so pitched that one and within 4 hours our fermentation was rolling along.

As soon as I pitched the 2nd yeast pack, I thought to myself....I shouldn't have done that.

Here's a lengthy explanation why.

Initial yeast pitched was 71-B which is a very good fruit wine yeast that tends to enhance fruit aromatics compared to other wine yeasts. It has a medium alcohol tolerance of 12-13% ABV which was the target range for our wine (semi-sweet). Did not have another 71-B on hand, so I pitched some Premier Classique which also has about the same alcohol tolerance.

As beer brewers, we are accustomed to pitching more yeast when a fermentation is sluggish. WLP001 working slowly? Have a US-05 dry yeast on hand which is similar? No worries there, just pitch it. Brewers will often blend yeast strains during fermentation (white labs sells many blended strains) to achieve characteristics from each strain. However, ALL yeast have a competitive factor. Positive, sensitive, or neutral. Almost all yeast isolated for beer making are either sensitive or neutral, meaning they will coexist together. Most wine yeast are positive, meaning they have enzymes that will inhibit (kill) yeast that are sensitive. Neutral yeast do not have the killer enzyme nor are effected by the killer enzyme.

71-B is competitive sensitive. Premier Classique is competitive positive. Within hours after pitching Premier Classique, 71-B was wiped out. :-( It's not the end of the world for our plum wine, but it will not have the light aromatic character from 71-B that we were shooting for. Doh.

01/29/2020

Dry yeast strains seem to be gaining traction among homebrewers versus liquid yeast for a myriad of reasons. Dry strains are typically lower cost than liquid yeast, more stable, have a longer shelf life (when kept refrigerated), and a wider range of strains are now available compared to only 5 years ago. For example, Lallemand now has dry yeast strains suitable for styles of Belgian Wit, Kolsch, New England, and lacto sours.

Many customers at DIY have asked "should I rehydrate dry yeast prior to pitching?" Ideally, rehydration is beneficial to proper yeast health. However, careful procedures should be followed to avoid damaging the yeast. How to instructions can be readily found with a quick web search. Some tips/pointers that I have followed when rehydrating dry yeast...

- Use spring water or distilled water.

- Most common dry yeast pkgs (for beer) contain ~11 grams. 8 oz of water is sufficient for rehydrating a single yeast package of this size.

- Target water temperature of 95-105 dF. Yeast prefer warm temps when reconstituting their cell wall and preparing for metabolism, however, temps over 110 dF can be lethal to most beer yeast strains.

- Optional use of a rehydration nutrient (GoFerm) is suggested but not a necessity.

- After proper rehydration, allow the yeast slurry to come to equilibrium temp (within 10-15 dF) with the wort/must. E.g. incremental additions of your wort/must to the rehydrated yeast will equalize the temps.

- Pitch within 1 hour after rehydrating, otherwise the yeast will begin depleting their glycogen reserves in a survival mode.

- Use utmost sanitary practices when rehydrating yeast.

01/23/2020

Reminder that DIY will be having our homebrew beer / wine / mead tasting on this coming Saturday (Jan 25th) from 11am-2pm here at the store. Looks like will be a sunny day, albeit a little chilly. Come join us with your homebrewed products and share some camaraderie with fellow homebrewers.

As an added bonus, DIY will be setup brewing an American Porter getting started around mid-day. This is a perfect time for new and potential homebrewers to see the brewing process. We will be displaying an all-grain process of mashing and sparging using a traditional converted mash tun.

Help spread the word to friends that are toying with the idea of joining our hobby.

Cheers,
Kevin

12/23/2019

Wishing all DIY customers a very Merry Christmas! Store hours during the holiday season for this week.

Christmas Eve 10:00AM - 2:00PM
Christmas Day Closed

Cheers,
Kevin

12/06/2019

DIY will be closed on Saturday Dec 7 for Palmetto State Brewers Open homebrew competition. Apologies for any inconvenience. Come join us at Cottontown Brew Lab on Saturday if you wish to see the inner workings of a competition. Palmetto State Brewers and Cottontown collaboration beer will be on tap at the event. There will also be a charity raffle of awesome homebrewing related prizes held around 4pm that afternoon. $1 per ticket to enter the raffle with proceeds going to Homeward Bound Pet Rescue.

Cheers,
Kevin

07/26/2019

Another brew weekend is upon us, and thank goodness it's not going to be 100 dF outside. Let's have another name that style being brewed. This one will be for 15% off your next 5 gal extract or all-grain ingredient kit at DIY. Perhaps a much easier brew question since only the attempted style being brewed is required.

93% Munich 5L
4% Victory
2% Chocolate
1% BlackPrinz

21 IBU Hallertau

Anticipated OG 1.050
Anticipated FG 1.010

No hints on the yeast

Prost,
Kevin

07/14/2019

Brew day at home breaking in a new 10 gal Igloo cooler mash tun. Let's do another 25% discount deal on a 5 gal all-grain or extract ingredient kit for the first correct answer of the beer being cloned. Specific commercial beer name please.

Some specifics...

90% Pale Malt
5% Flaked Barley
2.5% Cara 120L
2.5% Roast Barley
30 IBU East Kent Golding

Cheers,
Kevin

07/13/2019

Organized by the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) in 2002, Mead Day was created to increase mead awareness and foster camaraderie among meadmakers. Homebrewers and meadmakers around the world are encouraged to invite friends and family to celebrate Mead Day by making a delicious batch of mead together!

This will be the 4th year that DIY has sponsored a local Mead Day event. Come join us at the store on August 3rd starting at 11am and learn the process of making mead at home. Justin Brooks will be giving a demonstration again this year of the process. As with years past, you can make a batch of mead alongside with Justin step by step.

I have invited a few local bee keepers to join us as well and maybe give a short presentation on stewardship of bee keeping and discuss the importance of honey bees in our ecological system. Perhaps one or more of them will commit to joining our event.

For those interested in making a mead at the event, Justin and I have been in conversation about buying a 5 gal bucket (~60 lbs) of local wildflower honey. With enough interest, we can make it happen. DIY has everything else available for making mead. As homebrewers, we already have equipment for fermentation. Perhaps for a first mead, you might consider making a smaller volume. Typical batch sizes would be 1 gal, 3 gal, and 5 gal as those are most common volume sizes of secondary glass/plastic vessels. Plan on 3 lbs honey per gal for a "standard" 10%-12% ABV mead.

Come join us on Aug 3rd. Bring your own homemade mead, wine, beer, cider, etc to share and sample along with fellow DIY customers. A few participants from previous Mead Day events at DIY will maybe bring some bottles of mead that were made back then.

Cheers, and hope to see many of you at the event!

07/02/2019

Just a few signs that you might be a homebrewer....

- Growlers drying in the kitchen sink dish rack
- Erlenmeyer flask on a striplate in the kitchen
- Kegs & carboys soaking with PBW in the bathroom whirlpool size tub
- Carboys of fermenting beer and wine in the spare bathroom tubs
- More than 1 fridge or chest freezer in the garage that are connected up to a temp controller
- Eyes rolling at you as if to "get this stuff out of my space"

Cheers. Welcome to homebrewing.

06/25/2019

Liquid yeast users, check out some of the Omega Yeast strains that we carry here at DIY. I have been personally impressed with their yeast viability and fermentation. Omega packages their yeast with cell counts for a typical 1.060 wort based on genetic strain, not a specific # of cells. I.e. an Omega brand yeast package may contain anywhere from 150-500 billion cells, depending on how many workers it will take to ferment out that 1.060 gravity wort.

I recently brewed and used an "out of date" Omega yeast by building it back up on a stirplate. As a side note, this was one of their Norwegian strains that can handle fermentation temps in the range of 70-95 dF, and I expected a good viability even from an "expired" yeast pack.

Attached is video of the fermentation 6 hours after pitching in the wort. These are amazing yeasts to say the least!

DIY BrewHouse